These are the kind of questions that keep me awake at night. They seem so important at 3am but on waking I realise that you don't need a collective noun for collective nouns because they don't hang out together. They don't go around in gangs, hanging on street corners and terrifying old ladies, like a gang of teenagers might. They don't lurk under the watering cans of unsuspectiting gardeners waiting to induce nausea when they are accidentally touched, as a cornucopia of slugs might. They don't sit on the fence annoying the dog, as a kit of pigeons might. They don't sit on top of the school chimney waiting to steal the music teachers voice, as a murder of crows might. They don't lurk in the pond, waiting to get themselves mangled by the lawnmower when they venture out, as a knot of toads do. They don't wait in classrooms eager to bash things in a semi musical way as a raft of otters, a cete of badgers, a dray of squirrels or an skulk of foxes might.
Oh wait. They do. They lurk in my head at 3am, making me useless for the next day. A flamboyance of flamingos, a bloat of hippos, a murmation of starlings, a parliament of owls, a pandemonium of parrots, an audience of squid.
Why do squid need an audience? I thought they were quite shy, squiting their inky blackness to hide behind.
A shiver of sharks, a seething of eels, a rhumba of rattlesnakes, an implausibility of gnus........STOP.
I'm sure normal people don't do this. No wonder I'm so tired!
I've got it. It's an exhaustion of collective nouns.
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