Monday, March 12, 2012

A Collective of Borg

On Sunday, as I was driving my wife home, we were discussing the collective nouns for different animals. (Starting with "an unkindness of ravens" and "a murder of crows", two of the most evocative.) From there, of course, my mind naturally leapt to Mike Nelson's musings on the collective noun for zombies, as delivered in his commentary track for 'Night of the Living Dead'.

"A shamble,"I said aloud. "A shamble of zombies."

She nodded. "And a halitosis of vampires. And a sparkle of Cullens."

From there, it progressed to Doctor Who, with me suggesting "a shout of Daleks", and her coming up with "a mojo of Judoon." (I remember she also suggested "a mold of Autons", but some of the others escape me.)

Of course, I also think "a collective of Borg" is worth mentioning, if for no other reason than it sounds so utterly literal as to be perfect for Borg.

Needless to say, I someday want to write this into an actual Doctor Who script, with the Doctor musing on what the proper collective noun for Daleks would be. When they start screaming at him, he'd suddenly exclaim, "A shout!"

Any of you have collective nouns for fictional creatures you'd like to share?

3 comments:

Sean Tait Bircher said...

A cluster**** of Republicans?

No?

(Ok, that was kind of mean.)

magidin said...

Not imaginary, but I've always been partial to "a flunk of students."

A delve of dwarves; an invention of gnomes (I'm thinking the Dragonlance version); a steal of kender; an enchantment of wizards (though I suspect "conclave" is pretty ingrained).

An upgrade/a conversion of cybermen. A "muddle of Time Lords"? (-;

Dylan said...

Magidin...

No, no, no. The plural of wizards is "war."