A new collective noun: "astonishment"---(venery)

[Cohen, Gerald Leonard]

Btw, there's a book titled "An Exaltation of Larks" (by James Lipton).  Also btw, some years ago one of my students was interested in such expressions and ordered a book by this title via interlibary loan.  The subtitle was something like "Terms of Venery," and I was surprised to see that the book came from the libary of a medical school.  Evidently the librarian who catalogued the book at that campus must have incorrectly connected "venery" was "venereal."
 
Gerald Cohen

________________________________


>
>Most such terms are jokes rather than fully functioning elements of English.
>
><snip>  My guess is that "an exaltation of larks"
>meant not just "a flock"  ("Ooooh! Would you look at that exaltation of
>larks!")  but the sound of many chirping at once ("I heard an exaltation of
>larks this a.m.").
>
>FWIW.
>
>JL
>

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org