With many thanks to Cissi for the idea…

According to the Urban Dictionary (the unreliability of the source notwithstanding), the phrase “shower of bastards” is Irish slang for a “group of not altogether nice people.”

As in, “Look at that shower of bastards over there. They’re not even drinking Guinness.”  Oi, what a bunch of gobshites.

Anyway, this got me thinking about how many colorful, surprising, and just plain odd collective nouns there are. Wikipedia of course names all of them but here’s a few of my favorites:

A glaring of cats. (Hehe…I’ve certainly been glared at by my cat)

A coffle of asses.

A shrewdness of apes.

A chin of beards. (This one made me laugh out loud.)

A singular of boars.

A cheat of bursars.  (A bursar is the person responsible for billing you at a college or university.)

A threat of courtiers.

A murder of crows.

A busyness of ferrets.

A parliament of owls.

A storytelling of crows.

A drunkenship of cobblers. (You know, those guys who make and repair shoes.)

A neverthriving of jugglers. (Does this tell us something about juggling as a possible career choice?)

A number of mathematicians (Hahaha. This one might be a bit dubious.)

An obstinacy of buffalo.

A scathe of zombies.

An ugly of walruses.

And my number one all time favorite:

A sad of emos. (I shit you not)

Until next time…