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- Aug 12, 2005
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My mother just brought home James Lipton's Exaltation of Larks (1993) from the library, and we were talking about it last night. We both love wordplay, and we were discussing the book, collective nouns, venery terms, etc. She said she was disappointed that there was no gem/jewelry section, but she came up with a few on her own, and I thought I would share them with you PSr's! Also, I wanted to start this thread so anyone else could contribute either their favorites or try to coin some new ones!
My mother's collective nouns for gems:
a twinkle of diamonds
a glitter of emeralds
a burst of rubies
a sparkle of sequins
a shimmer of sapphires
a dazzle of topaz
a bed of pearls
Some terms of venery as examples: (btw, terms of venery means from back in the middle ages when men hunted there were particular terms for what a number of the same animal was called, i.e. pride of lions, covey of pheasants, etc. It's fun to google and you will find some very tongue-in-cheek terms, and some very poetic ones as well, like Lipton's Exaltation of Larks example.) colony of ants, gaggle of geese, nest of vipers...so on.
My mother's collective nouns for gems:
a twinkle of diamonds
a glitter of emeralds
a burst of rubies
a sparkle of sequins
a shimmer of sapphires
a dazzle of topaz
a bed of pearls
Some terms of venery as examples: (btw, terms of venery means from back in the middle ages when men hunted there were particular terms for what a number of the same animal was called, i.e. pride of lions, covey of pheasants, etc. It's fun to google and you will find some very tongue-in-cheek terms, and some very poetic ones as well, like Lipton's Exaltation of Larks example.) colony of ants, gaggle of geese, nest of vipers...so on.
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