Saturday, May 17, 2014

ANIMAL WORLD & GROUP NAMES

ANIMAL WORLD & GROUP NAMES

Khaliqur Rahman

Sometimes when I think of the animal world, I shudder
to realise that animals are more disciplined than most of us. Have
you ever seen a dog smoking or drinking? The animals are not
hypocrites because they are not capable of telling a lie because
they have no language like human beings. Man has language.
Englishmen have the English language. They have names for persons,
things, animals and groups of animals.
You must have come across terms like herd or flock or
even litter or pack. But have you come across similar terms like
sounder, shrewdness, hastiness, cowardice, charm, gaggle,
school, army, colony, troop, ambush, crash and parliament,
to list a few out of many?
Let's start with the king, the king of the animal kingdom.
What is the term for a group of lions? If you do know you'll
say a pride of lions! What about a group of tigers and a group
of leopards? Well, they say an ambush of tigers and a leap of
leopards.
What will you say if it is a group of horses? Well, you
can say a stud of horses. If they're breeding horses, you'll say a
harass of horses. A team of horses is dialectal.
When you see kangaroos together, you can say either a
mob of kangaroos or a troop of kangaroos.
You can use troop for monkeys, too, and say a troop
of monkeys.
Similarly, you can use mob for cattle, deer and sheep
and say a mob of cattle, a mob of deer and a mob of sheep.
A mob of sheep is Australian and a mob of cattle is both Australian
and American.
You say a shrewdness of apes, a sounder of wild
boar, a cowardice of curs, a charm of finches, a school of
porpoises and a school of whales, too.
A small school of whales is known as a pod of whales.
Learn English & Follow-up Essays // 59 //
It is possible to say a herd of whales and a gam of
whales also. When whales are bottle-nosed, they are referred
to as a grind of bottle-nosed whales.
A herd is a common term used for asses, buffalo,
cattle, cranes, curlew, deer, elephants, giraffes, goats and
pigs.
They say a herd of swine but a sounder of tame swine
and a drift of wild swine.
A game or herd of swans they say when the swans are
not in the air. When they are in the air, they refer to them as a
wedge of swans.
Racehorses always go in a string. Peacocks go in a
muster; pups and cubs, in a litter; sparrows, in a host and
swallows in a flight.
Let's now have a look at some humorous terms. Man
is an animal, perhaps superior most, perhaps most developed,
perhaps one who can laugh at himself like a monkey that can
bend down and round to have a look at its own red posterior
and laugh! Therefore, for sheer fun, it is possible to say a gaggle
of women and a bevy of ladies! I'm sure you must have found
yourself once in a while in the company of a superfluity of nuns,
faith of merchants and a hastiness of cooks!
Before I finish, I'm tempted to quote from a popular mailforward,
going round. Here it is: The English language has some
wonderfully anthropomorphic collective nouns for the various
groups of animals. We are familiar with a herd of cows, a flock
of chickens, a school of fish and a gaggle of geese. However,
less widely known is a murder of crows, an exaltation
of doves and, presumably, because they look so wise, A PARLIAMENT
OF OWLS!
A gathering of baboons are the loudest, most dangerous,
most obnoxious, most viciously aggressive and least intelligent
of all primates. And, what is the proper collective noun for a
group of baboons? Believe it or not . A CONGRESS!

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