Re: A ravening of ravens

Hi Phillip,

Yes, indeed, I'd forgotten that, as indeed other
terms having both formal (ethnological) and casual
usage, such as "totem", "skin" and "moiety".

Regards,
Yahya


-----Original Message-----
From: Ph.D.
Sent: Monday 3 April 2006 1:12 am
To: yahya
Subject: Re: A ravening of ravens


A large family or an extended family is sometimes
referred to as a "clan" colloquially.


----- Original Message -----
From: "Yahya Abdal-Aziz" <yahya@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Sunday, April 02, 2006 9:58 AM
Subject: Re: A ravening of ravens


> Yes, terms for humans are also of interest - why not?
> Unless you think of humans as inherently "not animals" ...
> In English, I can only think of the following terms,
> grouped by kind:
>
> - crowd, mob
> - couple, pair, item
> - family, extended family, kin
> - parents, grandparents, (great-)[*]grandparents
> - sibs, siblings
> - (great-)[*]uncles, (great-)[*]aunts
> - {,first-,second-,third-, ...}cousins[{once, twice, thrice} removed]
> - band, team, group, class, union
> - assembly, council, parliament, committee
> - race, nation, tribe, citizens, denizens, netizens, community,
inhabitants
> - duo or duet, trio, quartet, quintet, sestet or sextet, septet, octet ...
> orchestra [of musicians]
>
> and metaphorically, assemblies named for a place:
> village, town, city, hamlet
>
> Then there's collections of things:
>
> - a set of crockery, cutlery, bed-linen, collectibles, dentures, wheels
...
> - a pair of gloves, shoes, braces, shoe-laces ...
> - a train of wagons, carriages or other rolling-stock
> - a jarful, cupful, bucketful, spoonful, <container-name>ful of (whatever
> fits)
> - an armload, a (one-person) load of (whatever fits, eg firewood etc); a
> barrowload, truckload, wagonload, donkeyload, carload, shipload
> <conveyance-name>load of (whatever fits)
> - a trio [of crockery, comprising cup, saucer and side-plate]
>
> - a sewing-kit or -set [an assemblage of things used for sewing],
> - a drawing-kit or -set [an assemblage of things used for drawing],
> - a shoe-polishing kit or -set [an assemblage of things used for
> shoe-polishing] ...
> - a <gerund> kit or -set [an assemblage of things used for <gerund>]
>
> Regards,
> Yahya

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