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Collective nouns are subject-specific words used to define a grouping of people, animals, objects or concepts. For example, in the phrase "a pride of lions", pride is a collective noun.
Origin
Most collective nouns encountered in everyday speech (such as "team") are mundane and take no particular object. However, many of the oft-discussed examples are fanciful and are the only proper collective for a given noun.
This stems from an English hunting tradition dating back to at least the 15th century of giving poetic names to prey. These were known as "terms of venery" (where "venery" means the hunting of animals). For this reason, there are many collective nouns that refer to animals and many of these original collective nouns are archaic: a "harass of horses" seems to have been used little since the 1400s. Some alternatives for collective nouns can be clearly traced to the evolution of pronunciation in different areas (hence a "parcel of hogs" and a "passel of hogs").
Interest in collective nouns has always remained high, and the neologism of candidate collective nouns has been a pastime of many writers ever since. Some have achieved an entry in a respected dictionary; the vast majority have not, though many collective nouns have been circulated on websites such as Wikipedia and in popular discourse for humorous reasons or as trivia. In at least two cases (an "abomination of monks" and "a court of kangaroos") some authoritative resources allege them to be accurate, but research has proved these to be spurious as well.
Application
In British English, collective nouns can be treated as either singular or plural depending on the context. For example, "the team is in the dressing room" refers to the team as an ensemble, whilst "the team are fighting amongst themselves" refers to the team as individuals.
In the English spoken in the United States, collective nouns are almost always treated as singular; one says "the team is..." See Differences between American and British English -Singular and plural for nouns.
Some common collective nouns are used to refer to multiple distinct groups. "Herd" is a legitimate collective noun for dozens of animal species and the mythical fairy. "Set" and "group" are used broadly to refer to collections of concepts or objects.
Sometimes a collective noun will only apply to a group in a certain context. "Herd" can properly refer to a group of wild horses, but not to a group of domestic horses. A "paddling of ducks" only refers to ducks on water.
See also
Linguistics
English language
- Collective nouns sorted by subject
- Collective nouns sorted by collective term
- Collective nouns for people
- Collective nouns for mammals, non-human
- Collective nouns for birds
- Collective nouns for reptiles and amphibians
- Collective nouns for fish, invertebrates and plants
- Collective nouns for objects and concepts
- List of animal names
Bibliography
- Lipton, James. An Exaltation of Larks. Penguin. 1991. Booksources/0670300446 Booksources/0140170960
External links
The collection of genuine and spurious English collective nouns has proved an interesting diversion for many website writers:
- http://www.ojohaven.com/collectives/
- http://rinkworks.com/words/collective.shtml
- http://www.sanjeev.net/collective-nouns/index.html
Kollektivum | Sammelbegriff | Ainmear trusaidh | Substantivo colectivo | Singularia tantum
"English collective nouns"