I was delighted to browse through this book recently. A fun read for anyone interested in language. It’s not a long or complex book, but really just a nugget about some interesting developments in English with plenty of historical anecdotes and references as well as an interesting list of collective nouns.
The at-first confusing title is simple an example of one of the collective nouns or “terms of venery” that come to us from Medieval hunting tradition. Other examples include a “Murder of Crows” and a “Gaggle of Geese”. These collective nouns were used by gentlemen at the time to refer to groups of animals. The terms themselves were somewhat a mix of an argot and an inside joke (as many of the terms are quite playful or imaginative).
The information is not particular practical or useful, but clued me into an aspect of Medieval life that I was previously unaware of.
