a confusion of philosophers

Dan Goncharoff thegonch at GMAIL.COM
Tue Sep 20 03:17:26 UTC 2011


A parliament of owls?

Is that anything like a Diet of owls?

(Tastes like chicken...)

DanG



On Sat, Sep 10, 2011 at 12:22 PM, Jonathan Lighter
<wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      a confusion of philosophers
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 2010 Ron Hirschbein in Richard Brian Davis, ed. _Alice in Wonderland and
> Philosophy_ (Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley) 35: After attending a philosophy meeting,
> my son coined a term for such a group; said he: "You've heard of a
> parliament of owls; how 'bout a confusion of philosophers?"
>
> My, my, how 'bout that?
>
> OED has "parliament of owls" from Lipton 1968 only:
>
> 1886 _The Current_ (Chicago, Ill.) (June 12) 388: [T]he stately edifice/
> That once was palpitant with prayer and praise,/ Re-echoes to a parliament
> of owls.
>
> JL
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
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