"Jeff" <jeff.naylor@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:bf0e3k$8necm$1@ID-168987.news.uni-berlin.de...
>
> "Apoplexy" <apoplexy73@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:bf05m2$o5v$1@hercules.btinternet.com...
> >
> > "canalman" <hellposter@aol.com> wrote in message
> > news:17162e1b.0307141736.12cbfff6@posting.google.com...
> > > OK folks...here we go!
> > >
> > > We have a gaggle of geese, but what of swans, ducks, coot, heron,
> > > kingfishers, dabchics, moorhen, badgers, deer, foxes, mink, bats,
> > > water voles, boaters, gongoozlers and canoeists???
> > >
> > > Tony
> > > Collectively on the Basy
> >
> > <Anorak>
> > We also have a Skein of Geese (when they're in-flight...)
> > From what I can remember, there's a:
> > wedge of swans
> > raft or paddling of ducks
> > seige of herons
>
> </double anorak>Sege of herons?
>
> > skulk of foxes
> > cete of badgers
> > cloud of bats
> > </anorak>   Sad, I know...
> >
> Murder of crows
> desert of lapwings
> parliment of rooks and owls
> glozing of taverners
>
> ...and many more in Schott's "Nouns of Assemblage" but surely someone just
> makes them up!
>
Hey - I teach science, not English.  Ability to spell wasn't in my job
description!
Someone probably gets paid a hell of a lot more than I do to make up
ridiculous collective nouns.   What's the collective noun for a group of
collective-noun-maker-uppers?

Slainte!