Speccie 2836 all together now by 19 Feb
 

And what the hell are WAGs?

No. 2836: all together now

You are invited to coin collective nouns for the following: tweeters; hackers; hoodies; WAGs; environmentalists; bankers; MPs; contrarians. Please email entries, wherever possible, to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 19 February.

There was a Python sketch on this theme. I particularly remember 'a masturbation of zebras'.

A twat of tweeters
An antiestablishment of hackers
A hug of hoodies
A yawn of WAGs
An apocalyptication of environmentalists
An inferno of bankers
A grasp of MPs
A retort of contrarians

Not a lot of room for manoeuvre on this one, really. It would have been more fun to come up with our own groups too.

FYI John, 'WAGS' are the Wives And Girlfriends of footballers.

Dammit. I just thought of a twat of tweeters. Nice work.

I daresay everyone's thought of it, John.

Not me. I'll be sitting this one out down the pub again.

Oh come on Brian. It won't take ten minutes.

According to Bill Greenwell's history of the New Statesman competition, that magazines asked back in 1930 for collective nouns for:

chauffeurs, charwomen, income tax collectors, typists, actors, men-about-town, politicians, Jews, Scotsmen, commercial travellers, novelist, dramatic critics and hedgehogs

(From James Lipton's book An Exaltation of Larks, I learned that collective nouns can also be called terms of venery or venereal nouns.)

So perhaps "a venery of bankers"? Although "a veniality of bankers" might be better.

I see they were too chicken to do 'Jews' this time round.

Political correctness gone mad, I say.

A huddle of hoodies
A twitching of tweeters
A bickering of contrarians
A misery of environmentalists
A gluttony of bankers
A grope of MPs
An aeration of WAGs
A treason of hackers

Oh, and a circumcision of Jews

A cache of bankers
A brevity of tweeters
A gore of environmentalists
A grump of contrarians
A zuckerberg of hackers

Not to mention 'Scotsmen', Rob. Now, what might that collective noun be, I wonder?

Oh, very well, John. But me 'eart isn't in it, innit?

A cacophony of tweeters
A murdochery of hackers
A mumblitude of hoodies
A scrummage of WAGs
A verdancy of environmentalists
A veniality of bankers
A prevarication of MPs
A unanimity of contrarians

Now can I get down the pub?

A solipsism of tweeters
An isolated incidence of hackers
A deceit of MPs
A shuffle of hoodies
A dependency of WAGS
A field of environmentalists
A clutch of bankers
A repudiation of contrarians

A distillery of Scotsmen?

This is the weakest competition I have ever seen in the Speccie: Jaspistos will be revolving in his grave. Lucy is going to get 'a twat of tweeters' about a hundred times from various entrants, Bah!

Well, it's like a lucky dip, isn't it? I think she's trying to recruit more competitors. We tried it with A levels, as I remember, and it didn't work.

There are probably Scottish jokes that would be considered relatively inoffensive today -- a devolution? a connery? But I can't imagine many of us venturing some of the Jew jokes that were countenanced at the NS in pre-Third Reich 1930 -- a haggle, a gesticulation, a sheen(!) Maybe that's political correctness; maybe it's simply a decent respect to the opinions of mankind.

A meanness of Scotsmen?

I know you couldn't see it, Chris, but I assure you my tongue was firmly in my cheek there!

The curse of online communication. Without those damn smiley-face thingies, we never know where we're at. I blame the Jews who control the Internet.

Why 'damn' smiley-face thingies, Chris? :confused:

When writing with a tongue in one's cheek it's much more apparent with a ;)

I quite like 'em, actually :)

Jayne

Racist!cccccc

Coming after my post, Rob, it looks as if you mean me -- though I know you don't :p

On the other hand, depending on how Lucy allocates the prize money, the per-word rate for winners in this comp could be spectacular, since each entry will consist, essentially, of eight one-word jokes.

Do you reckon that we have to nail all eight to win anything? Or will she pick and choose grains of wheat from our chaff-intensive venereal lists?

Oh, the second I think. Though it is peculiar she hasn't said that.

Were I judging, I'd want a complete list of corkers for the extra fiver and pick individual contributions from the rest in a bid to bribe everyone into forgetting what a feeble contest it was.

Interesting about the New Statesman version back in the 1930s, though. Were there still charwomen at that date?

Good Lord, Adrian. You must be unsettlingly young. During the war (before my time) there was a popular comedy show called ITMA (It's that man again). One of the characters, Mona Lott, was a charwoman. And when I worked in London in the 1970s we had an old lady called Mrs Hilda Butt who did the cleaning. Was she a charwoman?

Sorry, Mon Lott was someone else. The charwoman was Mrs Mopp.

At some point the word charwoman was replaced by daily woman.

(Was there not a time when charwomen became known as charladies? Was there ever a male equivalent?)

Do the collective nouns have to be actual nouns or can we - should we - make up words de novo? Does 'coin' here mean innovate the usage or create the word itself?

An acne pit of hackers
a squeal of wags
a schmoozysine of MP's
a croakery of Frenchmen
a barackery of Dems (USA)

It would be quite a feat to manufacture eight new words out of thin air, or whole cloth, or whatever. I doubt that's the sort of coinage Lucy is expecting, although she'd most likely welcome creative examples of it.

She's probably looking for us to repurpose existing words, and I wouldn't be surprised if some of the winning "collective nouns" aren't nouns in common parlance -- e.g, "a spic-and-span of charwomen."

A caxil of tweeters
A skulbuggery of hackers
A halfhead of hoodies
A sistitution of WAGs
A clart of environmentalists
A pig-pennorth of bankers
A whipple of MPs
A naysay of contrarians

I by no means suspect YOU of racism, Chris, but couldn't 'spic-and-span' be misconstrued in this context (especially in U.S.) - and so perhaps be ruled out as non-PC?
i.e. "a [hi]SP[an]IC-and-[hi]SPAN[ic] of charwomen"?

(I am only joking...)

Originally, I was going to go with "a wetback of charwomen." You saw through my sly effort to encode the racist epithet.

(As you probably know, "spic" in American English is probably the most offensive anti-Hispanic slur. I think it derives from the mocking phrase "no spic a de Inglish," but that could be bogus folk etymology. The most offensive anti-black slur is, of course, a Southern-accented corruption of the Spanish word for "black." The most offensive anti-Jewish slur, I understand, derives from kikel, the Yiddish word for circle. The story goes that Jewish immigrants to the US, asked at Ellis Island to sign with an X if they were illiterate or couldn't write the Latin alphabet, preferred to sign with an O rather than with a letter that resembles the Christian symbol of the cross.)

A tootle of tweeters;
A nerditude of hackers;
A hoodlummery of hoodies;
A catfight of WAGs;
A zealotry of environmentalists;
A backstabbery of bankers;
A blathering of MPs;
An apocalypse of contrarians...

I am particularly taken with a nerditude of hackers.

a trivia of tweeters
a cellphoney of hackers
a burberry of hoodies
a mall of WAGS
a warning of environmentalists
a sub-prime of bankers
a numbskullery of MPs
a contra-flow of contrarians

a chattering of tweeters
a violation of hackers
a surliness of hoodies
a handbag of WAGs (or maybe an orangery of WAGs?)
an earnestness of environmentalists
a bonus of bankers
an ineptitude of MPs
And I refuse to provide a noun for contrarians, because that's just how I am

ETA: Now revised to a "wittering of tweeters"

-I like it, Melanie!

1.
a gaffe of tweeters
a breach of hackers
a stereotype of hoodies
a ballpark of WAGs
an acclimatization of environmentalists
a winnowing of bankers
a margin of MPs
a fallout of contrarians


2.
a twitch of tweeters
a justification of hackers
an inroad of hoodies
a boutique of WAGs
a kendal-felicity of environmentalists *
a dolour of bankers
an interruption of MPs
a multiverse of contrarians

(* referring to Felicity Kendal's TV roles as eco-suburbanite Barbara Good in 'The Good Life' and as investigative horticulturalist Rosemary Boxer in 'Rosemary & Thyme.)