English is awesome!

[nenena]

I just found out that the term for a group of shrews is a lament of shrews.

(Somebody in charge of the Oxford English Dictionary must really, really dislike crow and shrews.)

Comments

[baines.livejournal.com]

Some animals have really cool collective nouns.

Murder of crows
Parliament of rooks
Unkindness of ravens

For some reason, that seems to be where people decided to express a lot of imagination.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Seriously? Unkindness of ravens? That is possibly the most awesome thing I have learned in the last six months.

[nenena.livejournal.com]

OMG I had never heard of an "unkindness" of ravens before. That is AWESOME!

[kalium-kx.livejournal.com]

How oddly appropriate for Ukoku, the Giant Raven/Crow..

[(Anonymous)]

A murder of crows, I've heard of.

And a parliament of rooks, well, the first thing I thought was Parliament of Fowls by Chaucer, so that was not too unfamiliar.

But an unkindness of ravens... O_o

Whoever thought of the collective nouns for black birds in the English language must really dislike them...

[neocloud9.livejournal.com]

Did you know a group of ravens is called an unkindness? How cool is that!

[animeshen.livejournal.com]

That is a fun fact. I wish I could use that in every day conversation but shrews don't really come up as a topic all that often.
I like this stuff, like a group of rhinos would be a "crash", and a group of unicorns is a "blessing"- I suppose it WOULD be a blessing if you somehow saw more than one unicorn.

[nenena.livejournal.com]

I hadn't heard about the rhinos one before. Pretty neat!

[chiikaboom.livejournal.com]

fuck ya the english language.

[miss-breeziness.livejournal.com]

Is it sad or awesome that I understood the crow reference (a murder of crows) right away when reading this? :)

[corinn.livejournal.com]

I'm going with awesome.

This has nothing to do with the fact that I also understood that reference.

[nenena.livejournal.com]

Definitely awesome.

[(Anonymous)]

Homer: A group of crows is called a murder, Marge, a murder.

XD

[lost-angelwings.livejournal.com]

when you run into a group of shrews they will make you lament running into them!

actually I like that... from now on a group of Amis is a rue of Amis... you will rue the day you ran into the Amis! >:3

[silverystone.livejournal.com]

Oh dear, I just love english! Thanks for sharing, I didn't know about a lament of shrews before this post. XD

[olgiebear.livejournal.com]

Hmmm...I'm torn between the comments

- "Damn English, you scary."

0r

- "Oh English, you so crazy."

Never heard of unkindness of ravens.