Collective NOUNS?!

[Free_Matt_417]

Who decided what proper noun would be used for different things. Look what i found when looking up "the collective noun for zombies" (which i thought would be horde, but wasn't)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_collective_nouns_by_subject_I-Z

Who came up with this stuff?

I know it's Wikipedia, and Wikipedia is bullshit. But still.

Hmm..

[Archie]

I always thought the collective noun for nincoompoops was 'congress'.

Since I am now one, what's the collective noun for 'geezers'?

[one_raven]

A murder of crows has always been my favorite.

[one_raven]

ravens An unkindness of ravens √
ravens A conspiracy of ravens √

That's pretty cool too!

[Fraggle Rocker]

Even Wikipedia flags that page as unreliable for lack of citations. Wiki is not so bad if you know how to use it. Some of the worst words are marked as "spurious."

For example, "minyan" is a respectable word and it is, in a sense, a group of Jews, but it is not just any group of Jews. It is a large enough group of Jews to hold a worship service: ten males in an Orthodox congregation and ten of any gender in most others. It's a very specific word like "quorum."

I'll probably move this to Linguistics, it's appropriate and it will spark more interest there.

[Athelwulf]

How humorous.

A ubiquity of sparrows? An ambush of tigers? And a zeal of zebra? Haha.

I also like "a phalanx of storks".