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So you start out by saying people never say "murder of crows", yet it's very important for you that they stop? Sounds like a bad case of OCD by proxy. Most peo
by Grustaf 6y ago
So you start out by saying people never say "murder of crows", yet it's very important for you that they stop?
Sounds like a bad case of OCD by proxy. Most people seem to think this is a quaint feature of the English language that is fun to think about, if you don't agree just ignore it. As you say, you can easily avoid hearing the phrases spoken.
- IshKebab 6y ago> So you start out by saying people never say "murder of crows", yet it's very important for you that they stop? People never say "murder of crows" etc. when they are actually talking about groups of crows. But they do say "did you know that a group of crows is called a 'murder'? Haha" or "Question 3: What is the collective noun for a group of crows?" Hope that makes sense!
- Grustaf 6y agoSo the OCD is even worse than I feared. He is against other people even _thinking_ that a third set of people might be saying "murder of crows". That's pretty meta.
- IshKebab 6y agoNo, he is against people believing things that aren't true. How is that OCD?
- Grustaf 6y agoWhat would you call it when you have so strong feelings about what people you will never meet or even interact with think about a marginal feature of English? It certainly doesn't seem very sane. And it's not even that they are wrong, "murder of crows" is definitely correct English. Not just very commonly used. By the way, asking crow researchers what terms they use is just silly, they are the least likely to be using it, it's not a technical term, it's a quaint old expression - everyone knows that.
- IshKebab 6y ago> "murder of crows" is definitely correct English It's not. The article explained this!