Without a moment’s reflection, we refer to a school of fish, a flight of stairs, a host of angels, or a pod of whales. The italicised words are nouns of assemblage or nouns of company. They are sometimes called collective nouns or nouns of multitude. However, I think those expressions are better reserved for such words as majority, group, and collection, which all have implicit an inherent sense of number or multitude.
There are not many nouns of assemblage in general use. Those which are in use sound so natural to the ear that we rarely pause to reflect how easily idiom settles into consciousness. The strangeness, and sometimes the poetry, of some nouns of assemblage is only seen clearly when we encounter some of the rarer examples of the species.
In 1486 The Book of St Albans was published. There is a certain amount of mystery surrounding it. It is thought to be the work of Dame Juliana Barnes, who in turn is thought to have been the daughter of Sir James Berners: spelling was very unstable until Johnson’s time, so their surnames are quite possibly variants of the same name. The Book of St Albans was also known as A Treatyse Perteynynge to Hawkynge, Huntynge and Coote Armiris (A Treatise Pertaining to Hawking, Hunting and Coats of Arms). It contained a great deal of practical information about those subjects, including reference to the correct nouns of assemblage for the creatures and persons likely to be of interest to those for whom the book was intended. It was republished in 1496 by Wyncken de Worde with an additional section on Fysshynge.
The OED2 has 856 quotes attributed to The Book of St Albans. It was clearly a book to be accorded some respect. Chief among the purposes for which it is quoted in the OED2 is its collection of nouns of assemblage. It includes those which are in common use: colony of ants, flock of sheep, litter of pups, herd of cattle, and school of fish. It also has some which catch at the corners of memory: skein of geese (when in flight; on the ground, a gaggle of geese), brood of hens, clutch of eggs, string of ponies, plague of locusts, bevy of beauties, and band of men.
The real splendour of The Book of St Albans lies in its collection of nouns of assemblage which are no longer heard. Some were used as recently as 1906, in Sir Nigel by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Their passing is probably due to the fact that not many people nowadays do very much hawkynge or huntynge, although fysshynge is still popular. Still, if most know herd of elephants, why forget skulk of foxes? If we naturally speak of a pride of lions, why do we not recall a hover of trout?
Although political correctness may dissuade us from talking of a bevy of beauties (since compliments are demeaning and condescending, as are insults), it was Dame Juliana who recorded in 1486 the usage bevy of maidens. It must be added that she also gave bevy as the word for a group of roes, quails, or larks. (For those who baulk at the s on quails, OED2 gives quotes from Coverdale, 1535; Cornwallis, 1601; and Otway, 1684 supporting the usage.)
Less contentious, and more evocative, are a charm of finches, a drift of hogs, an exaltation of larks, and a bouquet of pheasants. This last is an example of how specific some of these terms could be. It refers specifically to a group of pheasant as they break cover in front of the beaters. It derives from the French bouquet (little wood), which in turn comes from the Italian bosco (wood) and boschetto (little wood). Our word bush is cognate with bosco. The original meaning of bouquet is the sense still retained in a bouquet of flowers. By extension, it refers to the perfume of the flowers, and by further extension to the ‘nose’ of a wine. So originally a bouquet of pheasants naturally evoked the sight of pheasants rising from the bushes ready to be shot at.
Birds must have been very important to the English gentry of the fifteenth century. They had nouns of assemblage for many different types: a murder of crows, a rafter of turkeys, a fall of woodcocks, a murmuration of starlings, a dule of doves, a cast of hawks, a deceit of lapwings, an ostentation of peacocks, an unkindness of ravens, a host of sparrows, a congregation of plovers, a mustering of storks, a flight of swallows, a watch of nightingales, and a parliament of owls. How much more drab is our language now, as we refer to virtually any group of birds as a flock or a flight. A flight is also the word for a company of angels: ‘Good-night, sweet prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.’ (Hamlet, Act V: ii)
More surprising yet is the fact that The Book of St Albans records nouns of assemblage for a range of animals which would not form part of the ordinary landscape of even the wealthy nobility of fifteenth-century England. So it includes a pod of seals, a gam of whales, a sloth of bears, a gang of elk, a crash of rhinoceroses, a barren of mules, a shrewdness of apes, and a route of wolves.
Nor is The Book of St Albans confined to byrdis and beystis. It records the approved nouns of assemblage for all manner of humankind. Many of the terms are self-explanatory; others give an oblique insight into the way various occupations were seen: a school of clerks, a sentence of judges, an eloquence of lawyers, a subtlety of sergeants (at law), a prudence of vicars, an obeisance of servants. For opacity it is hard to pass the following: a cutting of cobblers, a bleach of suitors (another word for cobblers), a misbelieving of painters, and a worship of writers.
Colourful ideas sparkle in all of these. Perhaps some of them can be rescued from oblivion. Others must be left under the dust of centuries. Dame Juliana was apparently not one of the Sisters, since she records a superfluity of nuns, a herd of harlots, a gaggle of women, and a scolding of seamstresses.
Just as we mistreat some words by ignoring and forgetting them, so we mistreat others by misusing them. With some, the effect of continuous misuse is a permanent change of meaning. With others, it is a prolonged period of irritated confusion. In the end, popular misuse generally prevails. Of the many words in this state of ambiguous confusion, there are three which are currently misused even by people who otherwise use the language with care and skill: fulsome, ilk, and eke.
Fulsome has one current meaning: ‘offensive to normal tastes or sensibilities, disgusting, repulsive or odious; in relation to flattery, grossly excessive or nauseatingly fawning’. Its obsolete meanings are closer to the meaning suggested by its form: abundant or copious (1583); and growing abundantly, rank (1633). By 1678 it was used in the sense of overgrown or corpulent; simultaneously, it took on the sense of sickening to the taste, nauseating (1601–1743). It is now most often seen in the expression fulsome praise. So used, it is no compliment.
Ilk is generally used as a noun: ‘We don’t want people of his ilk in this group’ — that is, of his sort. In fact, it is a pronoun and means same. Two factors have led to its being almost universally misused: first, it can be used absolutely (‘more of that ilk’ = ‘more of the same’). Secondly, it is commonly seen in the titles of Scottish and Irish gentry (Guthrie of that ilk: Guthrie of Guthrie). Since most Australians have little cause to be interested in the niceties of Celtic titles, and since the grammatical form suggests something like Cameron of that clan, the error takes root. Its erroneous use was further cemented by Ogden Nash in the couplet:
The cow is a creature of bovine ilk
One end moo; the other end milk
Eke is a more complex case. It is most often seen in the phrase eke out a living (as discussed in the previous chapter), and is generally intended to convey the notion of scratching along with very little. While not strictly wrong, it is a special case of the more general meaning to supplement. Originally, a person would eke out a livelihood by doing odd jobs: the odd jobs supplemented whatever other income was available. Likewise, a person would eke out a speech with a bit of rhetorical padding.