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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Bunches
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bib
Shipmate
# 13074
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Posted
Did you know that whales come in bunches? According to the reporter on the radio bunches of whales were seen swimming in the ocean. The mind boggles. I have visions of whales tied together with ribbon and held aloft! It concerns me that the correct use of collective nouns is rapidly disappearing and being replaced with a lazy generic term of 'bunches' to cover many groups. In the past week I have heard: bunches of politicians, bunches of dogs, bunches of people and bunches of situations. When I was at school we only referred to bunches of carrots and flowers. Now what do you bunches of shipmates say?
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"My Lord, my Life, my Way, my End, accept the praise I bring"
Posts: 1307 | From: Australia | Registered: Oct 2007
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Lothlorien
Ship's Grandma
# 4927
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Posted
So, are you calling us a "whole bunch of people"? A little girl I knew used to call her pigtails bunches.
Probably a bunch of other uses as well.
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Buy a bale. Help our Aussie rural communities and farmers. Another great cause needing support The High Country Patrol.
Posts: 9745 | From: girt by sea | Registered: Aug 2003
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bib
Shipmate
# 13074
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Posted
Sure Loth, but the numbers of things grouped in bunches is finite. If you listen to the news etc you will hear many people using 'bunches' when other correct terms are available. Maybe the correct terms are no longer taught in schools, so people are ignorant of them.
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"My Lord, my Life, my Way, my End, accept the praise I bring"
Posts: 1307 | From: Australia | Registered: Oct 2007
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
I agree that pod, pack and crowd ought to have been called into use. But it's hard to coin a non-tendentious collective for politicians - a graft? A bluster?
Whatever it may have been used back in the day, I think bunch now has a meaning of 'any ad hoc conglomeration of entities'.
Not but that I'm all in favour of Proper Collectives - if only so I can use one of my favourite jokes: What do you call two crows? Attempted murder.
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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Ann
Curious
# 94
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Posted
Meanwhile,the collective term for bankers is a wunch.
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Ann
Posts: 3271 | From: IO 91 PI | Registered: May 2001
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
"Pod" has recently taken on the strange meaning of "a cluster of office desks".
I agree that many of the specialized collective nouns seem to have fallen into desuetude. As has that word, too.
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
Here's a handy list we can all memorise, preparatory to working them into conversation.
Who knew alligators were a congregation? Or nuns a superfluity?
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
I did know that about the nuns - evidently coined by someone who didn't like them!
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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Piglet
Islander
# 11803
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lothlorien:
... A little girl I knew used to call her pigtails bunches ...
Pigtails (in pairs) that weren't braided into plaits but secured with a band like a ponytail were called bunches when I was little and had long enough hair to have them.
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I may not be on an island any more, but I'm still an islander.
alto n a soprano who can read music
Posts: 20272 | From: Fredericton, NB, on a rather larger piece of rock | Registered: Sep 2006
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
Just watch the BBC weather forecast. Showers often come in "bands" which sometimes even "march" across the country from west to east (so where are the trombones?)
I'm sure there are lots of other populist collective meteorological terms.
By the wife, my wife years and years ago decided that the collective term for teachers was a "moan".
Posts: 9750 | From: The other side of the Severn | Registered: Sep 2009
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by The Phantom Flan Flinger:
quote:
Originally posted by Ann:
Meanwhile,the collective term for bankers is a wunch.
There are many collective terms for bankers - most of which I shouldn't use here.
Why not go to Southwold Pier and use some of them as you "Bash the Bankers"?
(All right, I don't know if the game is still there, I haven't been for a year or two).
Posts: 9750 | From: The other side of the Severn | Registered: Sep 2009
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