Whimsy and Weirdness as Halloween approaches

I fancied doing a blog post that was a little tongue in cheek and fun. And in the process, who knows, you might come across one of these collective nouns that you haven’t seen before.

I was tickled pink to discover some recent examples. I thought the ones below were either a little writing related or applicable to the genre I write in.

A Kindle of kittens

A Stud of mares

A ‘Knob’ of pintails (a kind of duck apparently)

A Worship of Writers

A Clench of sphincters

A Plump of ducks

A Pace of asses

A Grind of blackfish

A Shiver of sharks

A Head of curlews (more birds)

There was some controversy about the collective noun for cocks – and I mean the rooster like birds that flock around the hens, you fowl minded people.

Some say ‘a Flock of cocks’ others suggest the right word is a ‘Brood’. And in case you really wanted to know, and don’t spend all your time Googling it (as I know you might) apparently it is a ‘Clutch of penes’ (plural for ‘penises’). Others have been suggested but I won’t go into too much detail here.

Then of course there are those that are more cooking related and as you know , I have a book series centred around a restaurant and two chefs. The restaurant is called Galileo’s and it’s in Soho, London.

Some may simply be someone’s fancy, while others seem to be the accepted use.

A Hastiness of cooks

A Glazing of taverners

A Rope of onions

A Jam of tarts

An Accompaniment of condiments

A Sproutness of mushrooms

A Promise of barmen

I had a particular fondness for this one and for the rather amusing little anecdote I found online that accompanied it. You can read it here Fesnyng

It’s a Fesnyng of ferrets – apparently this is the real, honest to goodness collective noun for these slinky creatures. I mean, who comes up with these weird names and what the hell were they smoking at the time because I want some.

And one last one I thought was rather clever…

A Fraid of ghosts