I just finished listening to the most wonderful book - and a children's book, to boot. Any book (or any thing, come to think about it) that Julie at World of Julie raves about always causes me to head in it's direction. I decided to get the book on CDs, to help medicate me during my endless commute. Honestly, it was so riveting that I ended up on a few occasions bringing it inside to play on my home CD player!
Part of the cast of characters is an "unkindness" of ravens. That stopped me in my tracks. And it had me heading for the encyclopedia. Some group names were mind-boggling: a "clowder" of kittens? Maybe in China, but shouldn't that be a "cuddle" of kittens? A "gulp" of cormorants? Maybe that's what you'd do if a whole "cloud" of them (think "The Birds") flew at you... And some were so darn appropriate: a "busyness" of ferrets. I also found that, apparently, some poor creatures hadn't even been considered in a group. That is just WRONG. So, in the name of all things equal, I give you:
A Hill of Anteaters
A Bundle of Aardvarks
A Fleet of Armadillos
A Flush of Falcons
A Mao-tain of Giant Pandas
A Gargle of Guanacos
An Ick of Iguanas
A Lotto Lobsters (sorry, couldn't help myself!)
A Kerfuffle of Newts
A Train of Rails
Our family loved words. We played word games on our endless car trips - the usual "I Spy" games with odd spins. "I spy something that should go on a sammich"; or "I spy the stinky feet of someone with a name starting with C". On one unfortunate occasion, my youngest sister, who was quite smitten with pigs, was sitting next to my paternal grandmother who, good-naturedly, decided to get in on the fun. "Oh, look," she said. "I spy pigs!" She was getting a little dotty by that time and, actually, there were no pigs. C punched her in the arm and was inconsolable. Would that have been a Phantasm of Pigs???
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