海角大神

In business jargon, a 鈥渉erd of cats鈥� is a group of employees who are difficult to manage. Getting them to work together is like trying to round up a bunch of felines that are prone to dash off suddenly. Herd is one of our go-to collective nouns in contemporary English. We tend to favor a few terms, such as group, flock, and pack, and apply them broadly.

For language aficionados, though, a group of cats has been a clowder from the 15th century to the present. Clowder is an odd word that comes from a Germanic root meaning 鈥渓ump.鈥� In English, it turned into clot and clod (a congealed mass of liquid or earth, respectively), which, in Yorkshire dialect, became cludder (鈥渃lowder鈥� is an alternate spelling). A clowder of cats is thus a sticky mass of them, clinging to your legs and tripping you as you go downstairs.

Clowder reflects a characteristic of cats 鈥� their tendency to get in the way 鈥� and many collective nouns follow this pattern, making a trait into the group name. This is how we get 鈥渁 bloat of hippopotamuses,鈥� 鈥渁 crash of rhinoceroses,鈥� and 鈥渁n intrusion of cockroaches.鈥� With these recent collective nouns, the connection between name and animal is clear to anyone who has watched a nature documentary or lived in a city.

Medieval examples, though, often presume a detailed knowledge of wildlife, especially of birds, that most contemporary city-dwellers no longer possess.

Fifteenth-century lists include 鈥渁 deceit of lapwings鈥� (these birds feign injury to lead predators away from their nests); 鈥渁n exaltation of larks鈥� (they sometimes sing while flying 800 feet into the air); and 鈥渁 fall of woodcocks鈥� (they migrate in groups and 鈥渇all鈥� on new patches of ground like snow as they travel; alternatively, the term might refer to the males鈥� courtship dance in which they fly up into the air, then fall, spiraling, down).

Other collective nouns are based on the sounds creatures make. 鈥淎 cackle of hyenas鈥� is a recent coinage. Medieval ones include 鈥渁 wauling [howling] of cats鈥� and 鈥渁 mute of hounds.鈥� Dogs were not somehow silent in the Middle Ages 鈥� this sense of 鈥渕ute鈥� derives from root words meaning 鈥渞iot鈥� and 鈥渜uarrel,鈥� an apt way to describe the baying of hounds. Geese were thought to make a noise something like 鈥済ag gag,鈥� so a group of these birds became a 鈥済aggle.鈥�

Some scholars argue that a 鈥渕urder of crows鈥� is also part of this group. It first appears in 1450 as 鈥渁 mursher of crows,鈥� which philologist John Hodgkin takes to be an onomatopoeic rendering of crows鈥� cawing. I have never heard a crow make a noise like 鈥渕ursher mursher,鈥� so I would say that it is a misspelling of 鈥渕urder,鈥� and that crows received their ominous group name because they are scavengers.

What do you call a group of collective nouns? A column.

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