From the back of the vehicle, under the disguise of his sparkling new just-bought-for-safari pith helmet, Hugh Cooper-Higginbotham shouted, “Hey ranger, look at that bloat of hippo, crash of rhino and band of mongoose”. You’re probably wondering how Hugh had such insight into the linguistic depths of wildlife nouns. It’s no mystery. Hugh’s linguistic skills are fake ! He simply read an informative blog written by the Sun Destinations’ team prior to his game drive and reeled off the facts to impress all and sundry.
You can also be like Hugh. With Hugh’s quirky facts about wildlife grammar, he won plenty of friends while on safari. Long evenings around the campfire were spent discussing syntaxes, plurals (mongoose, mongeese or mongooses?) and other exciting figures of speech.
Hugh is clever. Be like Hugh.
Annoy or enthral your game drive comrades with the following animal collective nouns:
- Buffalo: Gang, obstinacy or herd
- Elephant: Herd or memory
- Giraffe: Journey (on the move), tower (standing still) or herd
- Leopard: Leap
- Lion: Pride, sault or troop
Hippo: Bloat, thunder, raft, pod or herd
Rhino: Crash or herd
Parrots: Flock, prattle or pandemonium
Owls: Parliament
Bats: Cloud, colony or flock
Hawks: Boil, cauldren or kettle if migrating in huge flocks. Staff, flock or lease if not.
Herons: Siege
Cobras: Quiver
Crocodiles: Bask, congregation or nest
Toads: Knot
Zebra: Herd, dazzle, cohort or zeal
Flies: Business, cloud or swarm
* Hugh Cooper-Higginbotham is a fictional character. Many of the above collective nouns have not been “officially” authenticated and may just be the colloquial term.
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