Chrysti The Wordsmith: Nouns of Assemblage

Greetings and welcome to Christie the wordsmith. Terms such as litter of pups flock of sheep and pride of lions are called nons of assemblage or company terms. Modern English speakers have occasional need of these expressions as a herd of cows or stand of trees. But our conversation has a poverty of assembly terms compared to the vocabulary of 15th century English gentleman every aristocrat of that era was expected to be conversant in collective terms especially those of the hunt. 15th century European elk for example ran in gangs Roebucks However along with quail and larks collected in bevvy game Pheasants on Moss were called Abe OK inspired by the birds iridescent plumage turning to aquatic life we encounter the puzzling phrase school of fish which generates an image of our finny friends sitting attentively at their Neptunian desks. The image evaporates However when we learned that school was simply a misprint of the word shoal. Clusters of domesticated creatures were

given titles as well. A drift of hogs a drove of cattle clowder of cats string of ponies even humans didn't escape linguistic grouping in the England of former days. A discretion of priests are goring of butchers. A drunkenness of cobblers and a wandering of Tinkers. These are but a handful in the extensive litany of assemblage terms applied to humans. I'm Christie the wordsmith daver bores Christie the wordsmith a sponsored by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Zoot enterprises a high tech firm in Bozeman Montana offering challenging careers and innovative solutions for the financial services industry. Zoot web dot com.