A Quivering of Oozes

English has a feature called "collective nouns." You'll recognize them. It's how you have a flock of birds, but a murder of crows or a parliament of owls. Each animal has its own special group name. They're also called "nouns of multitude," "nouns of assemblage," "group terms," and "terms of venery." It's my favorite thing about English.(I got all this from the book An Exaltation of Larks, which is just about this linguistic curiosity.)We inherit collective nouns from medieval and fifteenth century social primers called Books of Courtesy, written to teach nobles how to talk and how to behave. Among these are helpful lists of "la art de venery," or the art of hunting, which contained lists of collective nouns for the different animals you might hunt, or keep on your farm, or order your peasants to give you in tribute. One of the definitive lists of these terms of venery is Book of St. Albans, whose authorship is credited to a woman: Dame Juliana Barnes (although this is contested). The…

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