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  • Collective Nouns, a la Shmoop A class of students...

  • ...a group of friends...

  • ...a flock of delusional moms...

  • You know what they say. Moms of a feather...

  • Like it sounds, a collective noun deals with a collection -- a collection of people, animals,

  • or things, referred to as one whole.

  • And since all of us watching this video are --hopefully -- people, we tend to be most

  • familiar with the people-related collective nouns.

  • A family of four, a team of soccer players, the cast of Glee, a massive crowd of Avril Lavigne fans...

  • There are also plenty of collective nouns for stuff, like: a pack of grapes, a bunch

  • of flowers, a bouquet of cards...

  • Wait a second...

  • There we go. Much better.

  • And then there are the animal ones, which range from normal to... totally insane.

  • A pack of wolves, a pride of lions, a murder of crows, a congress of baboons...

  • ...that last one seems pretty accurate. And the last thing to know about collective

  • nouns is that they're always going to be singular.

  • Which means that even though you're talking about a lot of things at once, you're always

  • going to use the singular verb form.

  • So, it's not "a mob of emus are," but "a mob of emus is going to make you a deal

  • you can't refuse."

  • And "an army of caterpillars is plotting an attack on the nearest leaf."

  • And "a crash of rhinoceroses is heading towards that glass museum."

  • ...Someone had better tell that flock of moms to get out of

  • the way...

Collective Nouns, a la Shmoop A class of students...

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