Thursday 19 January 2012

Working in Ottawa today --A Slick of Politicians

Good morning good people I will be working in Ottawa today.

Not much time to write today, have a busy, short day ahead of me.

People, unlike water and soil, is a collective noun, where as water and soil are mass nouns.  That may seem totally unimportant to you, that is until you try to express how much water.

Mass nouns require a unit of measure, you could not say, "I have 15 water which will mix so totally well with my 6 tons of soil." --well, you could but you would sound like a recent immigrant that hasn't quite figured out English; much like the bar patron on that commercial for some unknown product, "Yeah, and the price of these drinks is so reasonable at six dollars 40.".

People, on the other hand are easily quantified, "There were 7 people present, but no person was wearing argyle socks!".   

What does this have to do with a group of Slick Politicians you might ask?  Well, group itself is a catch all collective noun that works with near all constituent nouns, but for many nouns there are specific collective nouns for our convenience.

We are all familiar with the most popular of them, a gaggle of geese, a pride of lions, a school of fish.  But who is is charge?  Who do I speak with about the introduction of one and the replacement of another?

I don't know if there is a collective noun for politicians, but a Slick or a Stain of Politicians could do very well.  Now the collective noun for Owls is a Parliament, but I would like to speak to someone, to whom ever is in charge about changing this to an Inquisition of Owls.  Who? Please tell me Who?

How about an Obfuscation of Lawyers?

A Racket of Squirrels
An Entrapment of Constables
A Vacancy of Liberals --that one is funny twice
An Indulgence of Mayors
A Flounder of Economies?

2 comments:

  1. Your views are in accordance with my own for the most part. It’s quite inspiring I and I should admit that. ~ Distributor Jual Lemari Arsip ~

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