About: Collective Nouns

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An Entity of Type : owl:Thing, within Data Space : 134.155.108.49:8890 associated with source dataset(s)

In days gone by one of the delights of the English language was the profusion of colourful collective nouns used in everyday life. But, as our lives become ever less connected with our rural past, many of these treasures are being lost and we tend now to believe that all birds belong in flocks. Many of us still remember "A murder of crows" purely because it is so unusual, but how many recall "A herd of mute swans"?

Attributes	Values
rdfs:label	Collective Nouns
rdfs:comment	In days gone by one of the delights of the English language was the profusion of colourful collective nouns used in everyday life. But, as our lives become ever less connected with our rural past, many of these treasures are being lost and we tend now to believe that all birds belong in flocks. Many of us still remember "A murder of crows" purely because it is so unusual, but how many recall "A herd of mute swans"?
dcterms:subject	Words English language
dbkwik:uncyclopedi...iPageUsesTemplate	dbkwik:resource/-p1WJwBKpIZ6kc-pxCk3rQ==
Revision	4845685(xsd:integer)
Date	2010-11-29(xsd:date)
abstract	In days gone by one of the delights of the English language was the profusion of colourful collective nouns used in everyday life. But, as our lives become ever less connected with our rural past, many of these treasures are being lost and we tend now to believe that all birds belong in flocks. Many of us still remember "A murder of crows" purely because it is so unusual, but how many recall "A herd of mute swans"? Many of the more interesting collective terms for animals are largely unfamiliar to us simply because we do not often encounter "An acceleration of dugongs" and cannot expect to see "A flight of Penguins" outside the zoo. And, with computers making an ever increasing impact in our lives, it is said that most of us now believe that the correct collective noun for the mouse is "A click". All is not lost, however. There is one area in which the use of collective nouns is still accelerating. There are said to be more collective nouns for people invented every year than at any point in history. Let us celebrate then, the refusal of the English-speaking peoples to let this traditional past-time die, or to fail to discriminate against people even slightly unlike themselves.

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