Appendix talk:English collective nouns

Nuke from orbit
I think this article is deeply misguided - does anyone need to be told that one says 'a team of football players'. Conversely, there are some things which are not proper collective nouns - 'a freakshow of emos' for example. I vote this article should be pruned right down. 82.110.248.146 17:10, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Totally and utterly mostly unrelated.
This is funny: "A swarm of nanites" "A basement of vampires" "An itself of Yahwehs" "The Borg" Is it citable? probably not. But funny. Hmm, yes, it's funny. Please correct: it should be "Trip: a trip of goats" instead of "Trip: a tribe o goats".

Authoritative sources
Whether this article is legitimate or not, authoritative sources must be cited. The website, "dictionary.reference.com" is in no way a standard reference for any language, much less for English. Some small effort was made, I am happy to see, to make use of Oxford, Merriam-Webster, and other legitimate sources. Perhaps references could be found in actual literature -- you know, "books"?

As to the legitimacy of this article, I have to ask why an "appendix", as such, would need to exist in this media? If this is merely a list of fanciful collective nouns, then label it such; if it contains alternative, deprecated, obscure, obsolete or otherwise supplementary entries, those entries should be included (and labelled) in corresponding articles. Articles exist, like these:


 * Lists of collective nouns
 * List of collective nouns for mammals
 * List of collective nouns for birds
 * List of collective nouns for fish
 * List of collective nouns for reptiles and amphibians
 * list of collective nouns for animals

What can be done to fix this situation? (Miimno 20:01, 29 December 2010 (UTC))

Move to Wiktionary
The scope of this article exceeds the purpose of Wiktionary (see http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:WIN). This article should be moved to Wikipedia. (Miimno 20:52, 29 December 2010 (UTC))


 * An article listing all types of collective nouns is now on Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_collective_nouns. You may now wish to consider deleting the Wiktionary article. 122.108.201.251 15:48, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

thirst of Irish
Looks like it might be legit, but it's not on the dictionary page, so I scratched it. DAVilla 03:00, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

WT:RFM discussion
I have adding this page to RFM as a means of representing a request for moving this page to Wikipedia and deleting it from Wiktionary. The page was tagged for moving to Wikipedia in, on 29 December 2010.

I oppose deleting the page from Wiktionary. As an appendix, the page hosts a list of words, which seems to fit well into a lexicographical work. --Dan Polansky 11:20, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Also oppose, per Dan. &#x200b;—msh210℠ (talk) 14:44, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Mglovesfun (talk) 11:15, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Not moved. Mglovesfun (talk) 11:55, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Do we have provision for "copying to other MW projects" or specifically to WP? DCDuring TALK 12:07, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Apparently Wikipedia can't transwiki from us, I have absolutely no idea why. In this case, so they already transwikied it to us, so if they want it they can just restore their own version of it. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:45, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

The Appendix: Glossary of Collective nouns are a whole lot better and a lot neater. It's words are in a sort of dictionaryish version. The words are in alphabetical order so I advise that you go there. The words are in one column unlike this jumble of confusion.

"A rhumba of rattlesnakes"
"rhumba: A rhumba of rattlesnakes" can't possibly be real, can it? 173.89.236.187 03:17, 16 June 2015 (UTC)


 * This whole page is rubbish, so it's probably rubbish. Some day we'll clean it up. It hasn't been a priority. Equinox ◑ 03:34, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

Missing entry: "A crock of shit"

 * Not a collective noun, any more than "a jug of water" is. Equinox ◑ 04:33, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia used to be fun
This page used to be evidence that there was some fun left in wiktionary and wikipedia. Now that it is locked it is evidence that there is no longer fun in Wiktionary and Wikipedia.

Upon searching Google I have found the following for groups of zombies: 331 entries:	"a horde of zombies" 328 entries:	"a pack of zombies" 319 entries:	"a mob of zombies" 305 entries:	"a swarm of zombies" 285 entries:	"a plague of zombies" 278 entries:	"a gang of zombies" 154 entries:	"an infestation of zombies" 141 entries:	"a gaggle of zombies" 79 entries:	"a flock of zombies" 71 entries:	"an epidemic of zombies" 48 entries:	"an apocalypse of zombies" 34 entries:	"a stagger of zombies" 28 entries:	"a pandemic of zombies" 24 entries:	"a stench of zombies" jonrgrover


 * Google hits don't mean much. We need to meet WT:CFI. Maybe it isn't "fun" or cute, but we are trying to make a proper dictionary of real words in actual use, not some little snerky in-joke for xkcd fans. Equinox ◑ 22:18, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

A Coven of Witches
Heck, this is probably even "standard".

flock correction
3/4 of the nouns which use 'flock' still say 'flight' for some reason ('a flight of sheep'). The collective noun immediately preceding 'flock' is 'flight', but the 'flock' examples have not been changed and I don't have permission to correct them. Nissele (talk) 17:21, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

Merge discussion (2015-09)
There is an ongoing discussion (distinct from the closed RFM above) started in 2015 about merging this appendix with Appendix:Glossary of collective nouns by subject and Appendix:Glossary of collective nouns by collective term. Either or  should be added to the top of the page to link to this discussion (but it is edit-protected). - excarnateSojourner (talk | contrib) 18:33, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

I have merged this appendix with the two mentioned above (keeping this appendix's prologue) and saved the result at User:ExcarnateSojourner/Collective nouns. I would appreciate if someone with the required permissions would copy the content of that page to this one. (No modifications should be necessary.) - excarnateSojourner (talk | contrib) 05:56, 23 September 2022 (UTC)


 * I have performed the requested edit and also reduced the excessive protection level if further edits are needed. - -sche (discuss) 06:21, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

Collective nouns
I get that this was grandfathered in, but a surely a category of individual sourced articles is better and b if we keep this there should be a note somewhere at the top that the collective nouns for animals are terms of venery. — LlywelynII  15:35, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

Errors and protection level
The protection level for this is ridiculous, especially when the article has clear issues that anyone should be allowed to fix:

Mbartelsm (talk) 09:06, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
 * The article has a disclaimer about some entries marked with a "+". No entries are marked with a "+".
 * The entry for Language is mislinked:

RFM discussion: August 2015–February 2023
(Appendix:English collective nouns is edit protected, so I can't place the template there, but I guess that would be the more sensible target location)

Redundant to each other. Both pages have serious clean-up issues, of course ( has anyone ever actually called a group of cheetahs a "coalition", or is that a joke at the expense of perhaps the British coalition government? (Apparently it's in use!) Will anyone ever have need of a collective noun for Jezebels?). Smurrayinchester (talk) 13:12, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Most of these fancy collective nouns floating around the Internet are artificial words that amateur philologists pull out of their asses in order to look “cool”. Most of them have never been used and will probably never be used. If you think the ones listed at the page are bad, look at the edit histories. For this reason it is important that the validity of collectives added to these appendices (and to the mainspace) isn’t taken for granted.
 * On topic: Appendix:English collective nouns looks redundant to Category:English collective nouns, so I favour deleting it. But I think Appendix:Glossary of collective nouns by subject is useful to keep around due to its presentation advantages over a category page. — Ungoliant (falai) 17:50, 25 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Category:English collective nouns now (years later) contains many terms that do not fit the "a of s" pattern, such as and . - excarnateSojourner (talk | contrib) 00:17, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

(Added Appendix:Glossary of collective nouns by collective term - the sorting issues that led to these appendices being split would be better resolved with a sortable table). Smurrayinchester (talk) 10:55, 31 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Agreed. Merge all three appendices into one appendix (which will need considerable cleanup). - excarnateSojourner (talk | contrib) 00:26, 20 April 2022 (UTC)
 * I have merged all three appendices using the table format at Appendix:Glossary of collective nouns by subject, and the result is at User:ExcarnateSojourner/Collective nouns. I am just waiting for someone with the required permissions to copy this to Appendix:English collective nouns, as that seems to me to be the most appropriate location. It still needs lots of cleanup, but that is another discussion. - excarnateSojourner (talk | contrib) 05:51, 23E September 2022 (UTC)
 * @-sche Would you be willing to do this? &mdash; excarnateSojourner (talk &middot; contrib) 23:33, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I think I've now reduced the protection level enough that you can edit the page. If not, ping me again. - -sche (discuss) 00:11, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
 * The contents of User:ExcarnateSojourner/Collective nouns are identical to the contents of Appendix:English collective nouns and so there is no change to the appendix page if I replace it with the contents of the userspace page. It seems the main outstanding issue is that Appendix:Glossary of collective nouns by subject and Appendix:Glossary of collective nouns by collective term can now be converted into mere redirects. Is this correct? - -sche (discuss) 18:54, 22 February 2023 (UTC)
 * @-sche Oh! I see now that you copied my userpage to Appendix:English collective nouns back in September; I just never realized. My bad. Thank you. Yes, the "Glossary" pages should now be redirects, and I have just made it so. ✅ &mdash; excarnateSojourner (talk &middot; contrib) 02:27, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

Professional Collective Nouns
Some of the nouns on the page refer to certain professionals, but there are still plenty missing. Could I suggest taking from this article in the British Medical Journal for medical professionals? 216.24.219.60 05:38, 7 July 2024 (UTC)