Most collective nouns, or "terms of venery," were coined during the 15th century. Many were codified in books of courtesy, like the 1486 classic Book of St. Albans. St. Albans was a handbook for ...

RECENTLY THERE has been much debate on the use of the collective noun and its verb agreement. In the past we were all taught that the collective noun was followed by a singular verb. For example the ...

A German friend and I were discussing collective nouns. You know the kind of thing: A swarm of bees. A bunch of flowers. A deck of cards. I asked him if there were such things in his language. He said ...

The couple is going to purchase the house? Or the couple are going to purchase the house? Even after all my years of editing, I can still get tripped up trying to make verbs agree with collective ...

When there’s more of one thing, we refer to the term, “collective noun” to describe the group. When I was a kid, I ran around with my “gang.” We were the guys that played sandlot baseball part of the ...

Join us as we continue the age-old search to name groups of things. WE ALL HAVE our favourites. A flush of fungi. A bask of crocodiles. A charm of finches. And a superfluity of nuns – well, maybe not ...

Variously idiosyncratic, intriguing and often unerringly apt in their descriptions of gatherings of birds, animals and people a damning of jurors, an incredulity of cuckolds — most of the collective ...