26 January 2005

Look out! Cat stampede!

I just found out that a group of cats is called a "clowder" of cats - definitely a word I intend to bring into wider usage.

Every day when I walk home from school (at about 5pm) there are huge flocks of crows gathered in the trees overhanging the road, which is creepy to say the least. If you've ever seen The Birds, you'll know what I mean. Yesterday, as I crept along beneath the gangs of huge black birds, I remembered that the proper name for a flock of crows is a "murder" of crows, which didn't comfort me in the slightest. But it made me curious as to what a group of ravens is called, so I had a look on askoxford.com today: apparently a group of ravens is an "unkindness" of ravens, whilst a group of rooks is a "parliament" of rooks.

Go to http://www.askoxford.com/asktheexperts/collective/?view=uk and you can have a look at some of the other weird names for groups of animals. I was particularly interested to discover that a group of thrushes is a "mutation".

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Ah yes, the business of ferrets, a flick of hares, and a flock of lice (not really the flocking type though, are they?)

'smacks of jellyfish' sound like an interesting breakfast cereal.

thanks for the laugh Lew
-OnoBen