One of the pleasures of English is the imaginative and poetic use of its collective nouns. Their fanciful pedigree as names for person, places and things goes back to the 15th century.
A pride of lions. A murder of crows. A dray of squirrels. A wedge of swans. A pass of asses. (Oh, my!)
Such word groupings were originally used as terms of the hunt. No knight, Robin Hood, King Arthur, squire or scholar was thought learned unless he knew the collective nouns for fish, fowl, four-legged beast. No Lady-in-Waiting worth modestly blushing was without hope of encountering a prancing of unicorns, while gracefully sidestepping a furnace of dragons.
While there are hundreds of these verbal flights of fancy cataloged – with new generics being invented daily – most of us know just a handful. These oddball categories pop up in megabuck quizzes or MENSA conversations. (When was the last time you size-dated an IQ 180?)
Here's a sampling that you may or may not know, depending upon the cocktail parties you do or do not get invited to. A barrel of monkeys. A deceit of lapwings. A truculence of moving men. A flap of nuns. A fidget of altar boys. A discretion of priests. (Or indiscretion, as the case may be.)
Did I say cocktail parties? More like parish picnics on the Fourth of July.
Here's more collective nouns:
A whiplash of potholes. A Calcutta of panhandlers. A samba of shopping carts. A sneer of butlers. An indifference of waiters. A blarney of bartenders. A handful of gynecologists. A quincunx of objects. (Oh, my! again.)
By the way, if asked, the latter expression is scientific: "Any group of five objects placed in a square, with four of the objects at the square's corners, and one at its center." In other words, an orgy.
For those with salty taste, shake these on your next tossed Caesar salad: A freeze of virgins. A spread of centerfolds. A keyhole of voyeurs. A rack of sadomasochists. A herd of harlots. A lubricity of nymphomaniacs. A rictus of beauty queens. (Or, drag queens, if you prefer.)
Oh, yes! The Encarta Dictionary defines rictus as, "a fixed openmouthed grin or grimace, especially an expression of horror." (It might best be applied to size rather than beauty or drag queens. "Wipe that rictus off your face, Big Boy! Be thankful my quincunx seats five.")
Source for these delightful items is "An Exaltation of Larks: More Than 1000 Terms," by James Lipton. The $14.95 Penguin paperback reprint is illustrated with – if I may improvise on the spot – a giggle of graphics, a funning of old time lithos.
Mr. Lipton has done an heroic job of lassoing these energetic nouns, many of which are contemporary: An expresso of Italians. A doldrum of reruns. An embarrassment of beepers. A babel of cellphones. (Or – improvising again – an earful of iPhones.) A generation of sperm banks. An up-yours of New Yorkers. He missed corralling "a bushwhack of Republicans."
Lipton lists only one LGBT collective noun: a falsetto of transvestites. (His book dates pre-Stonewall: 1968.) To rictus, er, rectify this high-pitched oversight, here's more improv to improve an imagined improbability: A strappado of leathermen…
A courting of U-Hauls. A whirligig of dildos. A rosebud of bottoms. A tattoo of tops. A braggadocio of butches. A curtailment of crossdressers. A lingulation of lesbians. A mildew of closet queens. A changeling of T-persons. A intersection of bisexuals. A finger wave of proctologists. A salutation of P-FLAGers.
And just for devilish kicks: A flea bag of Fundies. A miasma of homophobes. A babble of Pentecostals. A bankrupting of televangelists. A soothsaying of conservatives. A pegging of rednecks.
