![]() ![]() A rascal of boysĪs a gal who loves a bevy (or two), the former just makes me laugh as a feminist, the latter makes me want to shake my fist and scream “boys will not be boys” at the top of my lungs. Take Our Poll Some (amusing) examples A bevy of girls vs. Collective nouns are typically incredibly imaginative and whimsical and often stand out, so when these everyday terms are pointed out to you as being one, you might find yourself questioning everything you’ve ever learnt (or not… maybe that’s just me…). ![]() A few that spring to mind are “a catalogue of prices”, “a library of books”, “an anthology of poems”, “a zoo of wild animals”, “a cast of actors”, and “a choir of singers”. Interestingly, it’s quite common for collective nouns to become embedded in common terms, so much so that it’s often difficult to establish which came first: the collective noun, or the common term (chicken and egg situation, amirite?). Topics include, but are not limited to: harlots, soufflés, terms of venery, and pugs. ![]() Most people are familiar with words such as group and bunch, which are frequently used in everyday speech and can be used to refer to people (“a group of people”), animals (“a group of dogs”), or things (“a bunch of things”)– even bananas (“a bunch of bananas”). In linguistics, a collective noun is a collection of things taken as a whole think “a class of students”, “a pride of lions”, or “a batch of cookies”. Collective nouns are, quite frankly, a very fascinating quirk of the English language, dating back hundreds of years. ![]()
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