a crash of rhinos (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Mullins, Bill AMRDEC]

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

Not in OED, that I can find.

_NYTimes_, 6/14/1951, p 26 col 4
"To the terrors of the wild add a shrewdness of apes, a sounder of
boars, a crash of rhinoceroses, a leap of leopards, and a flock, troop,
pride, sowse, or sault of lions."



> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On
Behalf Of
> Jonathan Lighter
> Sent: Sunday, August 22, 2010 8:20 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: a crash of rhinos
>
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      a crash of rhinos
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> -
>
> Another esoteric group term for a kind of animal, absent from OED.
This one
> actually seems to have some existence outside of novelty lists of such
> terms.
>
> GB supplies, from 1951 (semi-verified through WorldCat): "Are you
short of
> masters?" "We might easily have been. Two of our people have just had
a
> rather narrow escape. They were attacked by a crash of rhinoceroses,
which
> charged their headlights while they were out with the car one night."
>
> There a good number of additional exx., most of all of them in those
tedious
> lists, most since 1977, a great many since 2000.
>
> However, a 2007 episode of PBS's _Nature_  concerning the animals (it
was
> repeated this evening) contains the phrase, "a big group - fifteen
adults -
> a 'crash' of rhinos, as they call it."
>
> JL
>
>
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
truth."
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

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