An obstinacy of buffalo

Below is a list of my favourite collective animal names, I have no idea if these are genuine, but if they are then you can understand why I think the inter-web is so great.

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Isn’t the Internet great.

Whilst ‘browsing’ the 8mb wireless superhighway (from the comfort of rusty cheap Chinese garden furniture) I came across a website listing collective names for various animals.

Now believe me, I realise as I type that the previous line probably raises more questions than it answers about what I do in my spare time, but bear with me (see what I did there), for just one moment.

Below is a list of my favourite collective animal names, I’m fairly certain these are genuine, and if they are it gives you some idea as to why I think the inter-web is so great. Someone, somewhere, took the time to carefully craft and put this together.

I’d like to imagine the following names were all given by the same guy.

• A shrewdness of Apes
• A flange of Baboons
• A (family, lodge, colony) of beaver – ok, I admit this is only in the list because includes the word beaver
• A grist of Bees
• A gang of Bison
• A (pounce or clutter) of Cat
• A coalition of Cheetahs – rather ironic in these times of global insecurity
• A cartload of Chimpanzee – it was late, and this guy clearly ran out of inspiration when he got to chimps
• An intrusion of Cockroach
• A memory of Elephant – if you’ve ever seen an Elephant, you will agree they do leave rather large memories behind
• A flamboyance of Flamingo – not camp at all
• A skulk of Fox
• A froggery of Frog – this has got to be made up
• A horde of Gerbil – has a rather biblical resonance, but I can’t imagine old testament God saying: “Moses, I warned you, don’t make me angry, or damn it, I will release a horde of Gerbil on your ass”
• A troubling of Goldfish
• A prickle of Porcupine
• A barrel of Monkeys – which presumably come with an orgy of organgrinders
• A buffoonery of Orangutan – one of my personal favourites
• A dropping of Pigeon – nuff said
• A shiver of Shark

Out of all the collective animal names I think ‘an obstinacy of buffalo’ best describes me.

What would best describe you? http://dictionary.reference.com/writing/styleguide/animal.html If you don’t post an answer in the comments, I will consider you part of a sloth of bears…

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