Why not have collective nouns for plants, like a “greasing of palms,” or a “pursing of tulips”? Martha shares some others collected on the site of food writer Gary Allen. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Collective Names for Plants”
You’re listening to A Way with Words. I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette.
I’ve always gotten a kick out of those collective nouns for animals. You know, they’re the simple ones like a gaggle of geese or pride of lions. And then there are the more unusual ones like a smack of jellyfish and a clowder of cats.
Clowder. Clowder. C-L-O-W-D-E-R. Clowder of cats. And you can find a lot of those in the book An Exaltation of Larks.
Oh, very well-known book.
Yeah, I love that book.
James Lipton.
Yes, James Lipton. But I was thinking the other day, why should animals get all the good names? Why aren’t there great collective nouns for plants?
And, Grant, it turns out that there are.
Oh, really?
Yes, yes. I found a lot of those on the Internet. I mean, they’re made up, but they’re really cute. Try these on.
Yay, Internet. For almonds, how about a joy of almonds?
Oh, nice. Isn’t that nice? Are these real? Are these ones that people invented just to have fun?
Okay, these are invented collective plant names. Who cares? They’re still fun. Go ahead.
Yeah, let me give you some more. For grapes, a wrath of grapes.
Okay, yeah. For blue bonnets, how about an oleo of blue bonnets?
Okay. Like that. A Roberta of flax.
I knew you’d like that one.
Nice. A cliche of chestnuts.
Oh, clever, clever. Nice. And one more for you. For hosta, a luego of hosta.
What is hosta?
The plant with the really big leaves.
Never heard of it. So I’ve got two for you, Martha.
All right. How about this one? A flecks of spinach.
Oh, nice. You know, like Popeye?
Sure, sure. Okay. And then, this is my favorite, an ember of chili peppers.
An ember of chili peppers.
Right. They’re fiery hot, right?
Yeah. They’re like glowing red and they’re going to burn your lips off.
Yeah, nice. But we do have some kind of collective nouns, but they’re just not really specific, like a bouquet of flowers, right?
Oh, yeah. Or a sprig of mint.
Was that collective, really?
A sprig is like multiple leaves, right?
Yeah, that works. Or a mess of greens, one of my favorites.
A mess of greens, yep. But I’m going to share some more that I found later in the show.
Oh, super duper. Send your collected nouns for plants to words@waywordradio.org or give us a call 877-929-9673.
