Collective nouns

[trekkiedane]

[George Steinbrenner]^I remember buying the very first version of that, back in the day, on the medium of the future: Compact Cassette

 

[RevdKathy]

And as far as the problem of disappearing socks is concerned: that has a simple physical reason: Washing machines nowadays spin extremely fast. This creates a tiny black hole in the middle of each drum which is just big enough to swallow one sock at a time after which it collapses. As we all know some matter escapes from the average black hole in a jet stream and indeed occasionally socks have been found within the back of washing machines' casings, exactly where a jet stream were to be expected to exit.

And all this time I thought my washing machine was a doorway to Narnia. With a pile of damp socks on the other side.

 

[thestrangequark]

I found a rather long list of English collective nouns: http://www.rinkworks.com/words/collective.shtml

In German, we do have a few but not remotely as many. While ours root in hunting language as well, hunting was never such a popular occupation here as it used to be (and still is) in Britain. I assume that is the reason why we have so few collective nouns.

It seems to me that threre is a general trend in English to be a language with a huge vocabulary. There appears to be a word for every single shade of a meaning. It often drives me into despair when looking up a word: for every German noun, verb or adjective there are 10 to 20 meanings in English.

Example:
German : starren
English: gape, gaze, goggle, peer, scowl, stare at so/sth, stare into space...

That is because English has borrowed from so many different languages and when a word was borrowed the previous word being used was not always discarded but often kept (and often took on a slightly different meaning from the new word).

For example - gaze, goggle, peer are three different ways of staring.

True, i.e.

She gazed longingly at him, He peered through the key hole. Has a sublty different meaning than he peeped through the keyhole.

Scowl of course is a negative word. So you can't just interchange gaze for scowl. It all comes down to the context that you want to convey that determines which word is actually better to use. English

Along this line, I've met far too many people who didn't realize that leer is also a negative word. I remember once discussing street harassment here on the BBS, and some poster proudly saying that he leered at women after I'd clarified that I don't mind men looking, it's leering that bothers me.

 

[Captrek]

Merriam-Webster has, for selected words, synonym discussions that explain subtle differences between synonyms. The ones they have are excellent; I wish they had more of them. For example, here's the synonym discussion for take:

TAKE, SEIZE, GRASP, CLUTCH, SNATCH, GRAB mean to get hold of by or as if by catching up with the hand. TAKE is a general term applicable to any manner of getting something into one's possession or control <take some salad from the bowl>. SEIZE implies a sudden and forcible movement in getting hold of something tangible or an apprehending of something fleeting or elusive when intangible <seized the suspect>. GRASP stresses a laying hold so as to have firmly in possession <grasp the handle and pull>. CLUTCH suggests avidity or anxiety in seizing or grasping and may imply less success in holding <clutching her purse>. SNATCH suggests more suddenness or quickness but less force than SEIZE <snatched a doughnut and ran>. GRAB implies more roughness or rudeness than SNATCH <grabbed roughly by the arm>.

 

[MacLeod]

^True but even then you can say "She clutched her purse so as to prevent the theif from taking it".

So clutch can mean to hold firmly.

 

[ManOnTheWave]

Locally, animal experts refer to groups of cats as a colony, though I prefer the old fashioned term, a glaring. Quite descriptive.

 

[rhubarbodendron]

In Wonderland it'd be a grinning

Example:
German : starren
English: gape, gaze, goggle, peer, scowl, stare at so/sth, stare into space...

For example - gaze, goggle, peer are three different ways of staring.

She gazed longingly at him, He peered through the key hole. Has a sublty different meaning than he peeped through the keyhole.

Scowl of course is a negative word. So you can't just interchange gaze for scowl. It all comes down to the context that you want to convey that determines which word is actually better to use. English

Exactly my point. For all this huge variety of meanings we have only one single word and the meaning becomes clear through the context only.
The dilemma every German using an English dictionary has to face is: how to grasp the subtle differences when you only have a list of words without examples of their usage. That's also why computer generated translations suck so terribly.

Btw: awesome examples, Captrek. I gather there's more? Could you provide me with a link, please?

 

[MacLeod]

In Wonderland it'd be a grinning

Example:
German : starren
English: gape, gaze, goggle, peer, scowl, stare at so/sth, stare into space...

For example - gaze, goggle, peer are three different ways of staring.

She gazed longingly at him, He peered through the key hole. Has a sublty different meaning than he peeped through the keyhole.

Scowl of course is a negative word. So you can't just interchange gaze for scowl. It all comes down to the context that you want to convey that determines which word is actually better to use. English

Exactly my point. For all this huge variety of meanings we have only one single word and the meaning becomes clear through the context only.
The dilemma every German using an English dictionary has to face is: how to grasp the subtle differences when you only have a list of words without examples of their usage. That's also why computer generated translations suck so terribly.

Btw: awesome examples, Captrek. I gather there's more? Could you provide me with a link, please?

That begs ther question is there a reason for this difference?


Could it be simple beacuse English likes to borrow words from other languages and over the years these subtle differences have crept in.

And unlike some languages i.e. French, English is an unregulated Language.

 

[scotpens]

Along this line, I've met far too many people who didn't realize that leer is also a negative word. I remember once discussing street harassment here on the BBS, and some poster proudly saying that he leered at women after I'd clarified that I don't mind men looking, it's leering that bothers me.

Right. Perhaps you should have pointed out that leering is what this guy is doing.

By the same token, I've noticed a lot of times people use the word "manly" without realizing it has a positive connotation, and isn't simply a neutral synonym for "masculine." A woman whose appearance and/or behavior seems inappropriately or unattractively masculine isn't "manly"; the word is "mannish."

 

[YellowSubmarine]

Very suitable for old socks but I was asking about odd socks - I have a collection of about a dozen or more waiting for ther partner to turn up.

I'd call it "a choice function of socks" and give the owner of the socks a Fields Medal.

I once smoked a life sentence of weed together with a circus of senators, and we got so high that we sent a mass murder of redshirts to investigate a sea of tribbles in the sewage as a prank, boy, was that a bad idea, we ended up violating a kirk of starfleet regulations and I got demoted to an ensign.

 

[trekkiedane]

^

 

[Gryffindorian]

A bonding of chemists
A singularity of physicists
A spine of chiropractors

 

[rhubarbodendron]

that's awesome!!!
And a school of limnologists,
a hive of entomologists
and a forrest of botanists

 

[Captrek]

Btw: awesome examples, Captrek. I gather there's more? Could you provide me with a link, please?

http://books.google.com/books?id=8N4UReTJYhUC&pg=PP36

Much of the content of the book is available in the online preview, but it's not intended to be a good substitute for the print book and it isn't.

Some of the material is also available at m-w.com, like the example linked in my previous post, but only a small percentage of words have synonym discussions, and unfortunately there is no master list of them.

 

[rhubarbodendron]

still far better than nothing ! Thank you!!!

 

[B.J.]

a funk of bass guitar players

 

[Captrek]

a crash of race car drivers

 

[rhubarbodendron]

a choir of starlings =)
There's a big group of them sitting in front of my office window just now - it's fun to listen to their whistling, singing and prattling - it's a bit like 200 high-spirited schoolkids They gather for their flight to the south: the forecast predicts snow for Friday.

 

[Captrek]

a spirit of drunks

 

[Gryffindorian]

A harvest of farmers
A hedge of gardeners
An abomination of politicians
A circuit of electricians
A wave of surfers
A shear of barbers/hairdressers
A cleaver of butchers
A twang of country singers/artists