Last week NPR’s Studio 360 announced the winners of its 2014 Collective Nouns contest. Host Kurt Andersen challenged listeners to create collective nouns for this group of people: Conceptual Artists, Critics, Djs, Hipsters, Indie Filmmakers, IT Guys, Opera Goers, Trekkies, Venture Capitalists, and Yoga Instructors. James Lipton, perhaps best known as the host of Inside the Actors Studio, served as the judge. Turns out James Lipton actually wrote the definitive book on the subject:
Generations of word lovers have been turned on by James Lipton’s An Exaltation of Larks. The book details the provenance of more than 1,100 “nouns of venery,” as they are were called in the 15th century, including a pride of lions, a smack of jellyfish, an ostentation of peacocks, and many more.
In his research for the book, Lipton discovered that linguists in 1486 delighted in making up names for people, as well: a superfluity of nuns, an eloquence of lawyers, an incredulity of cuckolds. “And that’s when I began to play the game,” he says. He would invite his friends over to invent new ones — the playwright Neil Simon suggested “a mews of cathouses.”
Here is the audio clip of the Studio 360 segment:
And here, dear reader, is the list of winners selected by Mr. Lipton:
- An Enigma Of Conceptual Artists
- A Deck Of Trekkies
- A Rave Of Djs
- A Hedge Of Venture Capitalists
- An Altcommandcontrolshift Of IT Guys
- A Pan Of Critics
- A Festival Of Indie Filmmakers
- A Vintage Of Hipsters
- A Salutation Of Yoga Instructors
- A Ring Of Opera Goers