The other night, Ruth and I were talking about collective nouns (y’know, like a herd of cows or a flock of sheep) and came up with the somewhat batty idea of solitary nouns. Like collective nouns, but for a singular subject (one cow, sheep, or whatever).
Then, we tried to derive what the words could be. Some of the results write themselves.1
![Captioned photos showing "a HERD of COWS" and "a HER of COW".](/_q23u/2023/07/cows-1024x576.jpg)
![Captioned photos showing "a PRIDE of LIONS" and "a PROUD of LION".](/_q23u/2023/07/lions-1024x576.jpg)
![Captioned photos showing "a COLONY of BEES" and "a COLONIST of BEE".](/_q23u/2023/07/bees-1024x576.jpg)
Some of them involve removing one or more letters from the collective noun to invent a shorter word to be the solitary noun.
![Captioned photos showing "an ARMY of ANTS" and "an ARM of ANT". The latter picture shows an ant lifting a stick many times its size.](/_q23u/2023/07/ants-1024x576.jpg)
![Captioned photos showing "a COVEN of WITCHES" and "an OVEN of WITCH" (the latter picture shows a scene from Handsel & Gretel in which the witch is pushed into the oven).](/_q23u/2023/07/witches-1024x576.jpg)
![Captioned photos showing "a MURMURATION of STARLINGS" and "a MURMUR of STARLING".](/_q23u/2023/07/starlings-1024x576.jpg)
![Captioned photos showing "a GAGGLE of GEESE" and "a GIGGLE of GOOSE".](/_q23u/2023/07/geese-1024x576.jpg)
![Captioned photos showing "a ROUND of DRINKS" and "a ROW of DRINK": the latter photo shows a man drinking in a bar while fighting another man.](/_q23u/2023/07/drinks-1024x576.jpg)
![Captioned photos showing "an 1812 of CANNONS" and "a 1 of CANNON".](/_q23u/2023/07/cannons-1024x576.jpg)
Did I miss any obvious ones?
Footnotes
1 Also consider “parliament of owls” ➔ “politician of owl”, “troop of monkeys” ➔ “soldier of monkey”, “band of gorillas” ➔ “musician of gorilla”. Hey… is that where that band‘s name come from?
2 Is “cluster of stars” ➔ “luster of star” anything?
3 Ruth enjoyed the singularised “a low of old bollock”, too.
“A 1 of cannon” still makes me laugh inelegantly every time I remember it. Hat tip for that one, love.