The delightful and irritating crows were active in my front yard yesterday, and the phrase "murder of crows" kept sort of rolling in my mind like mild, Lake Superior waves. This happens when I see geese too, "gaggle of geese, gaggle of geese". I've always found this convention of grouping terms strangely appealing and have occasionally found myself irresistibly applying them to the social/professional groupings at my job. Today I decided to see what small list I could put together for you. These are rather on the cutting side (as befits the "gaggle" and "murder" inspirations), and I wonder if it would be possible to do a more friendly list sometime too. I'm not sure it would work.
Anyway...
A seclusion of computer operators
as in "Oh yes, there is a whole seclusion of computer operators working on the internet problem, but we haven't heard a thing about whether it will be fixed anytime today."
An entitlement of Administrators
as in "We had to move the quilting group to the kid's room because an entitlement of administrators is having a high level lunch meeting there this afternoon."
An imitation of Architects
as in "There was a very well respected imitation of architects that designed our building to look a lot like the Ridgedale Library."
A doze of Librarians
as in "Most of our doze of Librarians is working on collection development, but if you lightly nudge one of them they will help you."
A confusion of Patrons
as in "There is a rather large confusion of patrons that can't find the rental DVDs. What do you think, bigger signs?"
A delusion of Managers
as in "A delusion of managers has come up with an 11 point plan to improve staff morale."
A wander of Shelvers
as in "No, I don't know why there are so many unshelved carts here, we have a whole wander of shelvers working on it."
A bitter of Clerks
as in "I think he's over with that bitter of clerks complaining about the phones, or the schedule, or something."
I think there would be an endless array of alternates if you feel like weighing in below.
This has nothing to do with Libraries, but having just been to Canada, I would like to add "an attitude of Americans."
ReplyDeletewait, this reminds me of a poem I wrote for the library's patriotic poetry contest 11 years ago:
Delete"our country is great"
our country is great,
there's no doubt about it,
i'm often inclined,
to go out and shout it.
our country is great!
our country is great!
i shout it quite early,
i shout pretty late.
i blow a big trumpet
that's red white and blue,
i shout from my rooftop,
my dog does it too.
the neighbors dont like it
but what can they do?
its 3 in the morning,
and it's their country too.
How about: "a bewitching of books" as in "I have a bewitching of books on my nightstand at the moment."
ReplyDelete...though I'm not sure inanimate objects count. Don't judge too harshly. Are books not alive? Who knows what goes on after hours, when y'all leave for the night?
No, no, absolutely. Inanimate objects totally count! I'm not even sure there are such things as inanimate objects when it comes down to it.
Delete