[Ads-l] waddle
ADSGarson O'Toole
adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM
Thu Jan 21 20:14:24 UTC 2021
Nice work on an entertaining collective noun, JL. It appears that the
year for the Red Smith citation was 1961 instead of 1964.
The sometimes reliable Wikipedia has "waddling" for a group of ducks on land.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animal_names#Usage_of_collective_nouns
Garson
On Thu, Jan 21, 2021 at 10:58 AM Jonathan Lighter
<wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> 2021 _New Yorker_ (Jan. 25) 4: A group of penguins in the water is called a
> raft - on land, they become a waddle.
>
> OED has "raft" for aquatic birds from 1709, but no "waddle" of anything.
> How little know they of our native tongue!
>
> 1963 Red Smith, in _Philadelphia Inquirer_ (Jan. 18) 37: Mr. Lillis
> imported a waddle of penguins who lined up at the clubhouse gate in their
> snappy thermal attire and were the first clients admitted.
>
> 2004 Richard Spilsbury and Louise Spilsbury _A Rookery of Penguins_
> (Chicago: Heinemann) 29: What is a waddle of penguins? Some people call a
> group of penguins a waddle, because of the way they walk.
>
> Smith was a popular, widely syndicated sports columnist. Many zoo people
> must have read this column.
>
> 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
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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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