Is this real? I always heard “clowder.”
Yes, it’s real. The post was made today on the official Merriam-Webster instagram account. Both terms are used. Destruction is just more modern.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/a-drudge-of-lexicographers-presents-collective-nouns
“Used”
“more modern” = people are saying it on reddit
That is a load-bearing “(no explanation necessary)”.
I’d love to see an explanation. How did we get from ‘clowder’ to ‘destruction’? Gaining a syllable and losing alliteration is not a typical linguistic evolution. Who’s actually using this term?
The closest I’ve seen actual examples of is a tongue-in-cheek ‘catastrophe of cats’, and that never went mainstream as far as I’m aware.
Ditto. Clowder of cats is the term I’m familiar with.
“Destruction” of cats is new to me. I don’t think I like it. Doesn’t roll off the tongue well.
a Wunch of Bankers
I’ll just leave this here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeFMdVIFsgs
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://www.piped.video/watch?v=VeFMdVIFsgs
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
A Congress of baboons…
Some of the other are great too btw. A smack of jellyfish in particular seems like it’s based on a single traumatic but apparently common experience 😂
I accept.
Okay, if that list doesn’t have a business of otters, it’s incomplete and wrong on so many levels.
A conspiracy of lemurs has always been my favorite.
Where would one see an ambush of tigers other than a zoo or Circus?
If only there was an abstract word that could describe the union of many individuals when grouped together, regardless of their type of individual.
Where’s the fun in that?
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