People Groups

I had a conversation a long time ago about the names of different animal groups. Most people know, for example, that a bunch of lions is a Pride, lots of fish form a School, and you run away from a Swarm of bees. Some lesser known examples that you’ve probably heard: a Murder of crows, a Pod of whales, an Army of ants, and a Gaggle of geese. But there are even better ones than these. The San Diego Zoo website has a page with all manner of crazy animal group names. For example: an Obstinancy of buffalo, a Mob of emus, and a Crash of rhinoceroses. Check out the page for more; my personal favorite is what you call a group of wombats.

Clearly a creature of great intelligence

This popped back into my head recently when I walked past a group of motorcyclists. Even though these weren’t a bunch of leather-clad harley riders, it seemed appropriate to refer to them as a Gang of motorcyclists. Which got me thinking, what other names do we have for groups of people? And more importantly, what can we make up? Here’s what I’ve got so far, and please please please add your own ideas in the comments.

First, the obvious ones:

• Gang of motorcyclists
• Board of executives
• Legion of fans
• Band of musicians
• Class of clowns (wocka wocka)
• Chain of fools

And now, the new ones:

• Brief of lawyers
• Bundle of babies
• Corollary of mathematicians
• Function of programmers
• Furrowing of farmers
• Hush of librarians (my favorite! courtesy of Sandra)
• Irony of hipsters
• Jam of motorists
• Palin of idiots
• Round of doctors
• Scoop of journalists
• String of physicists

That’s all I’ve got so far. What else can you come up with?