collective nouns

I'm a big fan of the collective noun.

It's a word that refers to a group of something.  Often, you don't even need the noun part.  

For example a gaggle (of geese).  Unless they are a skein (flying geese) or a flock (mixed with other birds, or domestic geese).

Here's a list of English collective nouns for several different animals

Today I was trying to find the collective noun for silkworms but with no luck.  But I found some fun examples that I didn't know.  

I think it's a purse of silkworms.  

You won't find that anywhere on the internet, just in my head.

Timothy Markus wrote:I think it's a purse of silkworms.  

You won't find that anywhere on the internet, just in my head.

That sounds like the phrase I've heard before.    Thanks.

r ranson wrote:That sounds like the phrase I've heard before.    Thanks.

You've got to be kidding.  I should've ™ed it...

There's a really cool book from way back when, _An Exaltation of Larks_, that must contain at least a couple of hundred collective nouns. I think the official term is "terms of venery", venery being a word related to the Goddess Venus, because for some reason Her Loving Highness was also connected to the sport of hunting. (Because that's the 1st Love of True Hunters?? all thing are possible...)  I'm pretty sure that book is still in print -- when I just now did a search to make sure I had the title right, at least 4 or 5 different covers were shown in the pictures that were displayed!

How about "a facepalm of humans?" Perusing the news, it seems to fit these days.

EDIT: Excepting of course the fine folks who frequent this forum -- "an optimism? a repair? a thoughtfulness? a longview? a ____insert your word here___ ... of humans." Hmm, tough one.

Wow, I love it!

In a sci fi story where a human has been offered a free ride by a starfaring civilization, the human is shaving one morning and having a discussion with an alien, present only via microphone, and they get off on the subject of collective nouns for various fictional races on other planets ("A pride of Jovians, a dour of Saturnians,..."), and finally the alien offers up, "a gaggle of terrestrials"?  And the human admits, yes, there's some justice in that choice...