Friday, October 24, 2014
The plural of 'grouse': the pragmatics of collectives
Speranza
Chapman retells that when Grice did try to follow Austin and go 'through the dictionary' he stopped at "feeling Byzantine" (he covered the "A" to "B"). Ditto for me on the collective under wiki. Collectives for "A" include as per the below and it's enough to give you a headake.
Surely it would be misleading to refer to ONE 'ant' as forming an 'army'. But then people DO say 'the troop's name was Jim". So there.
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Subject Collective Term
ants An army of ants[2]
ants A bike of ants[2]
ants A colony of ants[2]
ants A swarm of ants[2]
antelope A cluster of antelope[2]
antelope A herd of antelope[2]
antelope A tribe of antelope[2]
apes A shrewdness of apes[1]
apes A troop of apes[2]
asses (roped) A coffle of asses[2]
asses (driven) A drove of asses[2]
asses A herd of asses[2]
asses A pace of asses[1]
auks (on land) A colony of auks[2]
auks (at sea) A flock of auks[2]
auks (on water) A raft of auks[2]
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