Plurals

Ever have something that is generally useless, even mundane, but genuinely entertains you? Here is one that entertains me – plurals of animals. Here are some of my favorites.

A colony of ants is not surprising but a shrewdness of apes is. A pace of asses must be somehow related to a congress of baboons. A cete of badgers sounds Greek to me. Alabama anglers long for a shoal of bass while hunters in other regions seek out a sleuth of bears. A colony of beavers make sense but you have to wonder who came up with a grist of bees, a volery of birds, and a troop of bison. I am not familiar with a sounder of boars but know a bit about an army of caterpillars, a rain of cats and dogs, a peep of chickens, and a bed of clams. What fun! There is a rag of colts, a flink of cows, a siege of cranes, an orchestra of crickets, and a murder of crows. Imagine, a rag, a siege, a murder and what is a flink? I like a dole of doves, a brace of ducks, and a knot of eels. Who could not like a convocation of eagles? How regal does that sound? For the pure imagery of plurals, consider a parade of elephants, a gang of elks, a cast of falcons, a business of ferrets. I have never been around ferrets but I gather they are busy little critters. I like a charm of finches, a leash of foxes, and a cloud of gnats (not that I like a cloud of gnats but I do like the words). There is a tribe of goats (that must smell awful!), a band of gorillas, a cluster of grasshoppers, and a kettle of hawks. Some plurals are downright perplexing. How do you come up with a prickle of hedgehogs or a drift of hogs, a harras of horses, a husk of jack rabbits, a smack of jellyfish, or a mob of kangaroos? Some make sense, though, such as a cry of hounds, a hover of hummingbirds, an exaltation of larks, and leap of leopards. Everybody knows about a pride of lions but few have heard of a tiding of magpies, a sort of mallards, a stud of mares, a richness of martens, or a labor of moles. It wasn’t until I got interested in plurals that I learned of a barren of mules, a watch of nightingales, a parliament of owls, a yoke of oxen, a company of parrots, a ostentation of peacocks (although that seems reasonable). How poetic is a bouquet of pheasants, a congregation of plovers, an aurora of polar bears, a bevy of quails, or a conspiracy of raven?. Some plurals are so descriptive that they leap to your mind when you see more multiples – a crash of rhinoceroses, a harem of seals, a stench of skunks, a cornucopia of slugs, a slither of snakes, and a murmuration of starlings. And, finally, to close this out, consider the pure beauty of a ballet of swans.