A Glister of Goldfinches

Today, I happened upon this post: 75 tools, games and links for word lovers (I couldn’t bring myself to include the word “awesome” used in the title.)

Of course, I had to explore the list: vocabulary and word sites, dictionaries and thesauri, word and spelling games. I enjoy word games, but if I started clicking on any of those links, the day would be lost. Instead, I poked around at Vocabulary.com, specifically “word lists,” an obvious choice. As I was scanning the alphabetical lists, birds: collective nouns caught my eye.

A collective noun is a word used to describe a group of objects. Collective nouns specific to one kind of object, particularly animals, can be quite imaginative and even poetic. Some common ones are a pride of lions, a brood of hens, or a gaggle of geese. Maybe because I’m familiar with these they seem a little ordinary. But the collective nouns for birds list offers these gems: glister of goldfinches, shimmer of hummingbirds and skein of geese (in flight). Some terms are more playful and humorous: death row of turkeys, improbability of puffins, extinction of dodobirds.

So where do these terms come from? Who coined them? It turns out there is a term for these terms — venery. Interestingly, venery has two meanings: the gratification of sexual desire, or the practice or sport of hunting, the chase. Wikipedia notes that venery, as it relates to words for groups of animals, comes from the English tradition of hunting. Dating back several centuries. these terms were used by gentleman to distinguish themselves from the lower classes.

I’m still curious about the origins of these words. A footnote led me to the book, An Exaltation of Larks, by James Lipton, host of Inside the Actors’ Studio. In the introduction, Lipton points out that terms of venery were considered at one time to be the proper way to refer to different groups of animals no matter how “fanciful or frivolous” they seem. These days, no one would question your education if you failed to call a group of pheasants a nye of pheasants. On the other hand, you wouldn’t you refer to “a herd of fish or a school of elephants.”

I think we’re missing out on some of the color and charm of our language by not using, or at least knowing, more of these terms. I may never have the opportunity to point out a glister of goldfinches, but as the geese fly south, I may be able to slip a skein of geese into the conversation.

I ended my brief exploration by ordering “An Exaltation of Larks.” No doubt I will revisit this topic once I’ve had a chance to read it. I also ordered several other word-related books, which I’m sure will provide additional blog fodder. More to come.

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