![]() ![]() Other names for a group of swans are: herd, team, bank, eyrar, gargle, as well as whiteness (not much imagination in the last one).Īlso one of our well known and beloved neighbours in the summer is the hummingbird. ![]() An adult male swan is a cob, from Middle English cobbe (leader of a group). Swan comes from the Indo-European root “swen” (to sound, to sing). Swans in flight would have a shape similar to a wedge. Wedge comes from Middle English, Old English and Proto-German, and means a simple machine made of metal or wood, thick at one end and tapering to a thin edge. If they are flying in a V, a group of swans is called a wedge. It is possible that the original sense of the word could be a company of birds gathered at a puddle or pool for drinking or bathing. The word might have come from the Old French bievre, (same root as beverage). Bevy, according to is a word of unknown origin that comes to us from the 15th Century. Your friends and bystanders will be overwhelmed with the precision and scope of your vocabulary. “Look at that bevy of swans,” you will say confidently, to the amazement and delight of those around you. You will be able to impress your friends. This is a good time to learn and practice swan terminology for next spring, when the swans return to M’Clintock Bay. Our swan friends, who have just left us for warmer destinations (or are in the process of leaving), are a good place to start. Let’s take a look at some of the collective nouns of the wildlife we see in our own backyard, as well as some further afield. Not every list agrees with the collective noun for the specific species, much like a dictionary is a catalogue of accepted meaning, For example on one list a group of swans is called a bevy, in another it is called a gaggle, which is also a word used to describe geese. Some of the collective nouns have to do with the action of the group, such as a leap of leopards, or a murmuration of starlings. Over the past 500 years, several lists of collective nouns have been created. The invention of the printing press, and the several printings of the book, of which only three copies remain, kept the excitement alive. Some of these names were collected in The Book of Saint Albans (1486), attributed to Juliana Berners, thought to be a nun. This game became adopted as common practice for a couple of centuries. In his book: A Conspiracy of Ravens, Bill Oddie states that in the Late Middle Ages, a hunting fraternity began a game of inventing animal group names. It’s interesting to trace the origin of the idiosyncratic collective nouns. More common collective nouns are a pod of whales and a pride of lines. Collective nouns are the names of groups of things: family, nation or flock.Ĭollective nouns can be rich and varied – especially for birds and other animals (school of fish) – that describe their particular grouping. Here is a rudimentary grammar lesson: nouns are the names of people, places or things: toddler, island or bird. Swans, hummingbirds and penguins, for example, have more than wings and feathers in common.
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