How about a little fun today with collective nouns?
Some collective nouns are just odd: a husk of jackrabbits, a knot of toads. But the best ones combine the idea of plurality with some characteristic of the species: A wake of buzzards, a parliament of owls, or (my favorite) a lounge of lizards.
But why should the animal world have all the fun here? Could we not also think of some collective nouns for people or groups in the Bible? Here are a few starters.
- A pride of Pharisees
- A sea of Egyptians
- A lesion of lepers
- A dirge of prophets
- A scribbling of scribes
- A confusion of concubines
We can do the same thing to today’s religious groups
- A chorus of charismatics
- A sprinkling of Methodists
- A potluck of Presbyterians
- A mass of Catholics
- A river of Baptists
- A porch-full of Mormons
- A smashing of Luddites
- A bank of tele-evangelists
- A list of legalists
- A pestilence of prosperity preachers
- A mall of mega-churches
Or even groups from our own church
- A hush of ushers
- A tyranny of toddlers
- A tangle of teenagers
- A babble of babies
- A diarrhea of diapers
- A caravan of minivans
Okay, your turn.
Comment your suggestions in one of the three categories above.
Remember, they should combine the notion of plurality with some characteristic of the group.
Bonus points if they begin with the same letter. Major demerits if you get mean-spirited.
It’s all yours, our rumpus of readers, our posse of pundits, our clash of commenters. Have some fun!
A shiver of Quakers.
A prevenience of Wesleyans.
A band of Salvationists, as Salvation Army folks like to call themselves.
A babble (or Babel) of Pentecostals.
A congregation of Puritans.
A limitation of Calvinists.
An exclamation of evangelists.
And a covetousness of televangelists.
LikeLike
I listened to the book and enjoyed it.
Having lived 40+ years in NW Arkansas I saw plenty of what Vance described, especially in southern Missouri (that’s where the real hillbillies are). Now, living in NE Tennessee about 10 minutes from the southwestern Virginia state line I realize that Arkansas and Missouri were hillbilly lite.
LikeLike
A dedication of DeadHeads.
LikeLike
Laughing!
LikeLike
Or, a coven of Calvinist perhaps ;o)
LikeLike
A line of queuers?
LikeLike
An Effervescence of Episcopalians
LikeLike
That’s even better – truly – sen
LikeLike
Except for the alliteration thing, of course.
LikeLike
Wouldn’t…
A magma of geologists
…work better?
LikeLike
Working for me! A small serving of Senecas please!
LikeLike
That was an excellent movie, and book.
LikeLike
Not sure which of these works best…
A quack of QAnon-ers.
A quarrel of QAnon-ers.
A craze of QAnon-ers.
A conspiracy of QAnon-ers.
A nutcase of QAnon-ers.
LikeLike
…..HI-YOOOOO!!!!!!….(as Ed McMahon on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson would say…)
LikeLike
A donnybrook of druids.
LikeLike
Ouch! I can’t believe I said that one too! (Cacophony of Catholics)..
LikeLike
A gaggle of geologists….
A mass of meteorologists…
A chorus of chemists…
An emergence of engineers…
An assembly of astronomers…
LikeLike
A cacophony of Catholics….
A transition of Trumpians…
A rhubarb of Russian Orthodox…er’s….ian’s…
A bunch of Baptists….
An armada of Arminians….
LikeLike
A fissure of schismatics
LikeLike
A stand of existentialists
LikeLike
A quandry of neo-orthodox.
LikeLike
I don’t have enough music theory to appreciate that particular piece. It sounds kind of bloodless and abstract, like music for Sorns. However, since she is an Atlanta girl, I had to give her the benefit of the doubt. Her Concerto for Orchestra and her Viola Concerto were a lot more emotionally accessible, actually, quite lovely.
It must be brutally hard being a ‘contemporary’ composer, and finding something fresh to say with thousands of brainy high-culture people dissecting each measure.
LikeLike
To Robert F. Sorry.
I meant to post here: Oh, wow.
LikeLike
I don’t think there’s anything Vance has to say in the book that you’re not already entirely familiar with in your day to day experience with others there in PA, Robert. I enjoyed
LikeLike
A serving of Senecas?
LikeLike
+
LikeLike
A farm of fundamentalists.
LikeLike
Reviews of the movie have not been overly kind.
LikeLike
You need to work “dryly” into those somehow — dryly.
LikeLike
A hymnal of hymnists. (Now archaic)
Oceans of Hillsong United worshippers.
A gnocchi of Gnostics.
A global warming of climate changers.
A chosen of Calvinists.
LikeLike
check out ‘Winter’s Bone’ for something more authentic and better acting
LikeLike
That was a funny back and forth!
LikeLike
The film got panned by a lot of critics as a result of its “boostrap-y” character. That’s all I know about it, and I know even less about the book. I have the hunch that I’d prefer to keep it that way.
LikeLike
A sneer of Senecas? 🙂
A strawman of Senecas? 😀
LikeLike
A monsoon of Moonies.
LikeLike
A hootenanny of Hutterites
LikeLike
A dizziness of dervishes?
LikeLike
After all that I think we need a Bottle of Bartenders.
LikeLike
Apologists? I thought you said geologists.
LikeLike
That’s a good one! I think it also applies to a lot of American churches today.
LikeLike
I know, IM is fast becoming a “Nest of Nerds.”
LikeLike
A “Mention of Moderators” 🙂
LikeLike
The wandering pondering.
LikeLike
Not wrong about the bootstraps. I caught a distinct whiff of Thatcherism about the whole thing.
LikeLike
Nice.
LikeLike
A division of dispensationsalists?
LikeLike
A pondering of post-evangelicals
LikeLike
An Angst of Anglicans
LikeLike
Indeed
LikeLike
Nice. Especially the theologians and fundamentalists
LikeLike
Love all these
LikeLike
Thanks Mike
LikeLike
A long strange trip.
LikeLike
A swirl of Sufis is brilliant.
LikeLike
A fiction of fundamentalists.
LikeLike
Oh my, perfect.
LikeLike
An Evolution of Episcopalians
LikeLike
Not quite on point, but here is An Exaltation of Larks, a very good string quartet by modern composer Jennifer Higdon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmOR0KdS9s8
LikeLike
A mustering of iMonks.
LikeLike
An orgy of Orthodox
LikeLike
Read the book last summer. It was a moving and powerful story, but a little too bootstraps-y for my liking. Kudos to JD Vance for getting out of Dodge, though. Please remember he was probably more like Mike Spencer than anybody commenting here except maybe Dan From Georgia.
Who is Frieda Pinto cast as? I don’t remember any cute brown girl in the book. It was the whitest book I’ve read since A Separate Peace.
I wish they’d make a movie out of Joe Bageant’s Deer Hunting With Jesus. That would rattle more cages than Vance’s book.
I kinda lost interest in the Whites of West Virginia when I found out that White was a family name. I have it on DVD and will get around to watching it.
If y’all want a real wild ride, get a Showtime free trial and binge-watch The Good Lord Bird with Ethan Hawke as Osawatamie John Gotdamn Brown.
LikeLike
A skein of Scientologists
LikeLike
A quietude of Quakers
A conflagration of Dispensationalists
LikeLike
gaunt crows fly
over stubble fields,
warmth in their wings
LikeLike
good one 🙂
LikeLike
It will be worth watching, you bet.
strongly urge people to take a look also at ‘The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia’
strong meat for them what has no clue about the pathos of what happened to the spirit of these people after years of being under too many troubles – and yet something remains of humanity in these folks
that is missing in many of the powerful in our country who array themselves against the helpless
you enter deeper waters when you encounter the results of generational poverty and the abuse of the coal mine owners in their thirst for profits over the safety of the mines. . . . . . we reap what we sow, super-capitalists, and may God have mercy on them what put these folks through generations of hell
LikeLike
A coup-coup of trumpists
LikeLike
A dithering of deists
LikeLike
Thank God! She will be a great help to you, Susan.
LikeLike
A bore of apologists
LikeLike
An apathy of atheists
🙂
LikeLike
A Soupcon of Scientologist
LikeLike
Ooh, I like those.
LikeLike
A cog of C.O.G.s [ Church of God ]
LikeLike
A dollop of Disciples [ of Christ ]
LikeLike
A knot of nondenominationalists.
LikeLike
A college of Cardinals.
LikeLike
A mess of Methodists
LikeLike
A Latte of Lutherans
LikeLike
An omnibus of orthodox
LikeLike
General observation:
Only Burro seems to believe that alliteration is not essential in defining collective nouns. But it’s still fascinatung that alliteration is such a powerful device for unlocking the creativity shown thus far. We can’t help ourselves!
LikeLike
A nest of Nazarenes
LikeLike
A cacophony of Catholics.
LikeLike
Read the book a few years back. It was quite insightful, and I recommends it to my family, who enjoyed it. The thing that sticks with me is the author’s recounting of a visit to a home where everyone was enjoyably chatting as they waited for dinner. He, however, was convinced they were all being “fake nice” and would soon enough be howling at each other. Yet the shoe never dropped. Some people really do grow up in worlds where adults can only communicate by shouting.
I never imagined it as a film, however, and while Amy Adams is usually enough to make me want to watch any movie, I’m not sure how this one will turn out. But I’ll probably check it out over the US Thanskgiving holiday.
LikeLike
[ senecagriggs favorite ]
A massacre of mainliners.
LikeLike
An excess of evangelicals.
LikeLike
[ I-monk favorite ]
An evisceration of Evangelicals
LikeLike
Off subject.
Hillbilly Elegy is coming out on Netflix today.
I want to know if Internet Monkers have read the book.
Or if you know about it.
And your review, if you care to watch.
LikeLike
A clanking of canes: Some call us the frozen chosen but we thaw out enough to climb the steps and ignore the ramp
On the side.
LikeLike
A trip of Deadheads
LikeLike
A quarrel of Orthodox
An ecumene of Congregationalists
A daven of Hasidim
A swirl of Sufis
LikeLike
A ton of Nones and Dones.
LikeLike
Susan: I approved you comment as soon as I logged in this morning. Remember, the comments are mostly unmoderated, We moderators check in only infrequently. Also, Dan Jepsen did not hold your comment up — the Word Press functions are responsible and they are not predictable. Sorry, that’s just the way it is, nobody at Internet Monk has anything against you. Mike the Geologist
LikeLike
A host of communicants.
A litigation of legalists.
LikeLike
A mess of missionaries.
A posse of proselytes.
LikeLike
A glut of glossolalists.
LikeLike
may be stretching the definition of religious groups here… but the adherent behavior begs to differ.
A rattlebrain of Republicans
A decadent of Democrats
A bonker of Bidenites
A tragedy of Trumpists
Just . Couldn’t . Resist
LikeLike
An argument of theologians.
A certainty of fundamentalists.
A cacophony of worship groups.
LikeLike
A jamboree of janitors
A tedium of teachers
A maximum of ministers
A mumble of missionaries
A thicket of theologians
A lunch of lutherans
A gravity of greeters
A pedantic of puritans
A fury of fundamentalists
A trellis of trustees
LikeLike
An infallibility of inerrantists.
LikeLike
A modicum of mainliners
LikeLike
A craze of cultists.
LikeLike
In the area where I live, at least.
LikeLike
There have been many claimants.
LikeLike
A chaos of denominations.
LikeLike
A myriad of Mennonites.
LikeLike
A mass of messiahs.
LikeLike
A conclave of Calvinists.
LikeLike
A pestering of pastors
A banquet of biologists
A compound of chemists
A pillage of pharmacists
LikeLike
A torrent of theologians
An assemblage of apostles
A faction of fundamentalists.
I’m done.
LikeLike
A deluge of deacons
A plethora of pontiffs
A slew of Seventh Day Adventists
LikeLike
I deserve bonus points.
Daniel — I complied with all the rules you set
Let me go.
Maybe we can have a stutter of singing Susans
Susan
LikeLike
Please release me let me go.
Susan
LikeLike
‘A nourishment and nurture of Nurses.’
My daughter Frances, a Registered Nurse working at a large hospital in Australia, is taking Carer’s Leave to come home to me for a week after I have my surgery next Tuesday.
She is also an angel, I am sure with her beautiful singing she can join any heavenly choir.
‘A chorus of Carers.’
When she was living at home she sang for many years in our church choir and sang solos.
May she be blessed.
She is my precious girl.
Susan
LikeLike