Collective Nouns
Collective nouns are really a quite interesting aspect of the English language, since they are often quite peculiar and strange, particularly so for people who are learning English. In effect, a collective noun is a word that indicates a group of something. So we have one ‘person’ (the ‘person’ being the noun) yet we have a ‘crowd’ of people (‘crowd’ being the collective noun).
The difficulty for anyone learning English is that collective nouns often seem to make no sense. We have a ‘pride of lions’ and a ‘leap of leopards,’ or how about the very strange, ‘shrewdness of apes.’ So instead of writing, ‘I was in the jungle and I saw a huge group of apes,’ technically it would be more fitting to write, ‘I was in the jungle and I saw a shrewdness of apes.’
One of the aspects of collective nouns is that many people are often unaware of the correct collective noun to be used. That is why questions about collective nouns (particularly with reference to animals) are often asked on TV programs.
However, for anyone learning English, many collective nouns are in everyday use and have to be learned. For example, a ‘box of crayons’ or a ‘set of knives.’ These words are often difficult to learn because they do not clearly relate to the noun when it is used in the singular, for example, a ‘pad of paper.’ So in order to check whether your collective noun is the most appropriate one, always double check, using some kind of online grammar checker or punctuation software package, this will ensure that everyone can understand what you write.
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