![]() ![]() So it was basically the medieval equivalent of airbrushing. Apparently as long as they got the heraldry and clothes right, everything else was up for grabs. It seems that this one came about because painters of the Middle Ages generally tweaked their paintings to flatter the sitter – so they’d flatten a stomach, take out the wrinkles and so on. ![]() The first human collective noun on my list, a ‘misbelief’ is exactly what it says on the tin – ‘a wrong or false belief or opinion’. ‘Parliament’ has now completely superseded the original (although for the life of me I can’t find out what that was, which shows how ingrained ‘parliament’ is now). He nicked it from a poem by Chaucer, which is called ‘The Parliament of Fowls’ (or ‘The Parlement of Foules’ to give it its proper name – I did try to read it, but then I remembered that I hate Chaucer), where all the birds in the world get together to find mates (hmmm, I could do with organising one of those). We can blame CS Lewis for this – he called a chapter in ‘The Silver Chair’ (my favourite of ‘The Chronicles of Narnia’, followed closely by ‘The Magician’s Nephew’) ‘A Parliament of Owls’, as it involves a group of owls getting together to discuss Narnian affairs. In fact, it’s technically wrong – ‘parliament’ was traditionally ascribed to rooks, not owls. This is a relatively new one, as it doesn’t turn up in any of the medieval manuscripts that coined most of the collective nouns on this list. They’re one of the few members of the animal kingdom that can recognise human faces, and there’s evidence that they might have their own language. ‘Murder’ seems like the right choice after reading this.Ĭrows are also super clever, which possibly makes them even more murdery. ![]() Long thought to just be folklore, it’s been witnessed in modern times, as in this article. It quite often ends with the offender being ripped to pieces by its peers. This is essentially a crow court, where loads of crows gather together to apparently try one of their own. One of the other reasons they might have chosen the word ‘murder’ is after witnessing a crow parliament. Seeing a crow on the roof of your house meant that you’d probably die soon (ouch) as well. According to Rhodes, medieval peasants saw crows (along with ravens and rooks) as messengers of the devil with prophetic powers. And it has pretty menacing origins as well. I’m not entirely sure what collective nouns had to do with being a noble, but maybe if you used the wrong one you’d be executed? If so, that’s my kind of grammar police. One of the earliest of these is the Egerton Manuscript which dates from around 1450, and lists 106 collective nouns. Basically the ‘What not to wear’ of the 1400s, these were manuals on how to be a noble, designed to stop young aristocrats embarrassing themselves by saying or doing the wrong thing at court. They first appeared in 15th-century manuscripts called ‘Books of Courtesy’. Most of the nouns on this list have been around for yonks. Because I know how to paaaartaaaay.Ī note on the origins of collective nouns BLOWN.) So, with the help of the lovely little book ‘An Unkindness of Ravens’ by Chloe Rhodes, here’s a list of some of my favourite collective nouns. Excited yet? No? Okay, how about this – did you know that ‘a flight of stairs’ is a collective noun? And a ‘baptism of fire’? (Mind. Collective nouns aren’t just for animals – there are also collective nouns for people and things.
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