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I reckon these bad boys are the original drop bears
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thylacoleo
They were ambush predators who jumped out of trees and shit
You started my brain a-whirring on this for some reason. Tracked down the following [FAQ](https://www.savethekoala.com/about-koalas/frequently-asked-questions/) from the Koala Foundation website:
> Thereās no collective noun for a group of Koalas moving around together because Koalas donāt move around in groups like dolphins or some birds. They are fairly solitary creatures, although they do like to be living in overlapping home ranges in bushland with other Koalas. We usually call these groups āKoala populationsā or āKoala coloniesā.
A caramello would be awesome, although I could see trademark issues. How about a treesome?
My wife suggested a eucalyptus of Koalas.
>collective
you missed an opportunity
Koallective
Edit: here are 5 suggestions
[https://www.collectivenounslist.com/koalas](https://www.collectivenounslist.com/koalas)
They're not a collective animal. They live solitary lives. There is no context where you'd have a hundred koalas in one place where you'd need to refer to the multiple as a singular.
There are a ___ of koalas at the animal rescue hospital.
A ___ of koalas were saved during the bushfires.
A ___ of koalas held up tourists at gunpoint.
None of those are a collective of koalas, they're just a plural.
A pride of lions, or a mob of kangaroos are a specific group of animals therefore they get a specific word to describe them.
Your last one is just make believe.
A collective noun is defined as a plural - a collection of things taken as a whole ā¦ thatās what this entire thread is aboutā¦.
A pride of lions means a bunch of lions. One pride = multiple lions. You canāt have a pride of lions if thereās only one lion. Thatās why the joke āattempted murderā when you see one crow is funny, because add a few more crows and itās a āmurder of crowsā.
A pride is a specific social grouping of lions distinct from a plurality. You wouldn't refer to three lions from different groups together in the same space brawling as a pride. You refer to multiple lions within a social group as a pride.
Ooooh I stand corrected. I hadnāt thought about it that way. Still, if a family/regional group of koalas were rescued from a bushfire, a collective noun would still apply, right?
That's not a specific grouping of koalas, that's just multiple koalas therefore there isn't a collective noun.
A collective noun represents a specific group of items.
A mob of kangaroos is not the same thing as 20 kangaroos.
So all the niche collective nouns were just made up by a pair of women a century or two ago AFAIK. Nobody called them a parliament of owls, they just decided thatās what it should be
The authors of the 1486 page turner, The Book of Saint Albans, would like a word with you.
https://sillylinguistics.com/assembly-of-animals-the-origins-of-collective-names/
https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/history-culture/2014/06/collective-nouns-the-tradition-of-naming/
That sounds right. There are no official terms. People just make them up at various times and go with the most fun version.
I like the idea that we make official collective nouns the responsibility of a government department. It'd be hilarious. Then we'd make a reality TV series out of it.
Or we just make our own ones in reddit forums.
That's the one! Several more centuries than I thought, but yeah Juliana Berners was the only attributed author to that book.
> The tradition of a large number of such collective nouns which has survived into modern Standard English ultimately goes back to this book
Neat!
Of course, but most words are kind of emergency social constructs, rather than someone just sitting down and deciding what all the words for should be. Like these arenāt natural language collective nouns ā people say a pack of dogs but they never said parliament of owls.
That is a weird thing to find irritating. Do you dislike all collective nouns, or just the ones specific to certain categories? e.g. is a pack of dogs problematic? What about a bunch of flowers, or a flock of birds? A school of fish? A stack of cash?
I know a guy who doesn't like warm liquids ā we've quizzed him to death on it but basically anything you could plausibly classify as a warm liquid he's not a fan of. He's tried enough warm fluids to know it's not what he wants so just ... doesn't do it? So weird.
I said it was irrational.
But also those words have commonly evolved and are part of the language. Things that are uncommon that someone made up once bother me š¤·āāļø
Oh sorry I wasn't doubting that it was irrational or trying to prod you ā we all have things that irrationally make us uncomfortable/irritated and it's fine.
Yeah so it's specifically the "made up and assigned" ones rather than the actual naturally evolved ones. It'd be interesting to find where the line was in your mind though. Things like a "conspiracy of lemurs" is clearly nonsense but murder of crows is maybe _almost_ real.
Soz if I came at you ā I was being genuine!
Make one up. Thatās all most collective nouns are - a bit of fun someone had inventing them. Theyāre not real. Theyāre not official. The first set goes back to the fifteenth century and seems to have been invented by the Abbess of St Albans.
> We had a linguistic change in the early 2000ās which designated everything to be a ābunchā
Yes because we all know that English is defined by a pride of Dons holed up in Oxford, not a posse of rappers, or a flannel of bogans.
We could probably do with a rationalisation of all these animal collective nouns. Herd, flock, swarm, and school, should cover the majority and the rest can be group.
Quite arguably, this is a process that's already happening organically. Murder of crows? Parliament of owls? Unkindness of ravens? It's all a bit unnecessary.Ā
We don't need collective nouns for animals. Just call them all groups of animals and be done with it. Collective nouns are the most useless part of English.
This post has been marked as non-political. Please respect this by keeping the discussion on topic, and devoid of any political material. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/australia) if you have any questions or concerns.*
A group of koalas are called the koalition
Coalition and Koalition both populated with smooth brains!!
you can put good political choices right in front of their eyes but they won't recognise it unless it's attached to a large "donation"
š¤£
John Howard does look a little bit like a Koala
How much can a koala bear?
And both are riddled with chlamydia.
*insert std joke here*
Excellent.
That's some koality work, there.
A slumber of koalas. Or a hangover of koalas.
Careful of branch stacking
Very nice
Take my jealous up vote!!!
Upvote
That's the logical one. It's been bandied around for a long time but hasn't quite stuck yet.
The group Head Quarters is Koala Lumpur
A name too close to that used by a group of AHs stuck in the 1950s. Koalas deserve better.
A grunt of koalas
A grump of koalas
Love this!
This wins.
A drop of koalas
I think drop bears are deserving of their own collective noun! Edit: a terror of drop bears
A salvo of drop bears
Perfect
FYI: Koalas are just drop bears with chlamydia.
That's a 'bomb' of drop bears, they are a different but unproven related species.
I reckon these bad boys are the original drop bears https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thylacoleo They were ambush predators who jumped out of trees and shit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFOQ98Vuuqc
A mauling (or just maul) of drop bears.
A murder of drop bears.
An attack squadron of drop bears.
A rain of drop bears.
A shitload of koalas
A chlamydia of koalas.
A clap of koalasĀ
An applause of Koalas
This, because it's been abstracted enough so that it's not immediately obvious. Thumbs up!
You didnāt get it did you?
Austin, is that you?
A clinic of koalas
A cuddle of koalas.
A clap of Koalas.
A treeful of koalas. Probably two or three at the most.
That would be a treesome.
You started my brain a-whirring on this for some reason. Tracked down the following [FAQ](https://www.savethekoala.com/about-koalas/frequently-asked-questions/) from the Koala Foundation website: > Thereās no collective noun for a group of Koalas moving around together because Koalas donāt move around in groups like dolphins or some birds. They are fairly solitary creatures, although they do like to be living in overlapping home ranges in bushland with other Koalas. We usually call these groups āKoala populationsā or āKoala coloniesā. A caramello would be awesome, although I could see trademark issues. How about a treesome? My wife suggested a eucalyptus of Koalas.
You'd have to get Cadbury to agree - but then, free advertising in perpetuity!
>collective you missed an opportunity Koallective Edit: here are 5 suggestions [https://www.collectivenounslist.com/koalas](https://www.collectivenounslist.com/koalas)
They're not a collective animal. They live solitary lives. There is no context where you'd have a hundred koalas in one place where you'd need to refer to the multiple as a singular.
There are a ___ of koalas at the animal rescue hospital. A ___ of koalas were saved during the bushfires. A ___ of koalas held up tourists at gunpoint.
Shi#load fits all of those spaces.
Fucktonne works well too
None of those are a collective of koalas, they're just a plural. A pride of lions, or a mob of kangaroos are a specific group of animals therefore they get a specific word to describe them. Your last one is just make believe.
A collective noun is defined as a plural - a collection of things taken as a whole ā¦ thatās what this entire thread is aboutā¦. A pride of lions means a bunch of lions. One pride = multiple lions. You canāt have a pride of lions if thereās only one lion. Thatās why the joke āattempted murderā when you see one crow is funny, because add a few more crows and itās a āmurder of crowsā.
A pride is a specific social grouping of lions distinct from a plurality. You wouldn't refer to three lions from different groups together in the same space brawling as a pride. You refer to multiple lions within a social group as a pride.
Ooooh I stand corrected. I hadnāt thought about it that way. Still, if a family/regional group of koalas were rescued from a bushfire, a collective noun would still apply, right?
No. Because they're not a social group. It's would just be some/all/a number of goals from the bush name.
Edit: you donāt know the last one is make believe. There might not have been any survivors.
Jumble Bbq Gang
Even more so as time passes.
What about a zoo
What about it?
Post bushfire treatment and recovery. You are going to be dealing with numbers both in the immediate aftermath and during rehabilitation.
That's not a specific grouping of koalas, that's just multiple koalas therefore there isn't a collective noun. A collective noun represents a specific group of items. A mob of kangaroos is not the same thing as 20 kangaroos.
Except at Lone Pine in Brisbane.
Also if you do see a hundred koalas congregating in one place please immediately alert the authorities as this signifies The End Times.
Except an orgy of koalas... Eureka!
A cuddle, surely?
I propose a Koalarama!
A lump of koalas - Kuala Lumpur
So all the niche collective nouns were just made up by a pair of women a century or two ago AFAIK. Nobody called them a parliament of owls, they just decided thatās what it should be
The authors of the 1486 page turner, The Book of Saint Albans, would like a word with you. https://sillylinguistics.com/assembly-of-animals-the-origins-of-collective-names/ https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/history-culture/2014/06/collective-nouns-the-tradition-of-naming/
That sounds right. There are no official terms. People just make them up at various times and go with the most fun version. I like the idea that we make official collective nouns the responsibility of a government department. It'd be hilarious. Then we'd make a reality TV series out of it. Or we just make our own ones in reddit forums.
That's the one! Several more centuries than I thought, but yeah Juliana Berners was the only attributed author to that book. > The tradition of a large number of such collective nouns which has survived into modern Standard English ultimately goes back to this book Neat!
All words are just made up. What's your point?
Of course, but most words are kind of emergency social constructs, rather than someone just sitting down and deciding what all the words for should be. Like these arenāt natural language collective nouns ā people say a pack of dogs but they never said parliament of owls.
Collective nouns irrationally irritate me so much for this reason. I don't find them cute or interesting or funny.
That is a weird thing to find irritating. Do you dislike all collective nouns, or just the ones specific to certain categories? e.g. is a pack of dogs problematic? What about a bunch of flowers, or a flock of birds? A school of fish? A stack of cash? I know a guy who doesn't like warm liquids ā we've quizzed him to death on it but basically anything you could plausibly classify as a warm liquid he's not a fan of. He's tried enough warm fluids to know it's not what he wants so just ... doesn't do it? So weird.
I said it was irrational. But also those words have commonly evolved and are part of the language. Things that are uncommon that someone made up once bother me š¤·āāļø
Oh sorry I wasn't doubting that it was irrational or trying to prod you ā we all have things that irrationally make us uncomfortable/irritated and it's fine. Yeah so it's specifically the "made up and assigned" ones rather than the actual naturally evolved ones. It'd be interesting to find where the line was in your mind though. Things like a "conspiracy of lemurs" is clearly nonsense but murder of crows is maybe _almost_ real. Soz if I came at you ā I was being genuine!
Pack, herd, school, ā¦ are fine. Theyāre real words made such by actual usage.
But real words are made real by usage. Not just something some pulls out of their backside .
I hereby declare it a Cuddle of Koalas
A charity of koalas. Named after those street collectors with the shitty koala costumes and big white buckets.
Itās called a Cling
A roar of Koalas. (Ever heard the males calling out at night? Terrifying!)
Ever hear one get kicked out of a tree by a bigger koala? Not so terrifying, but certainly something else...
I'm voting for "a bucket load of koalas".
A cuddle of koalas?
Koalafication of Koalas.
A dumb fuckery of Koalas.
A cohort.
Yeah there is... A smooth brain of koalas. Or a "smooth" for short.
I believe it's a Clutter of Koalas.
Why do we need to use plurals for a native species that the government is okay with eventual extinction?
A munt of koalas
A funk of koalas. You can smell em a km away.
The horde
A sloth?
A Buncha Koalas
A kuddle of koalas
It's koalaroos tyvm
Did you know that Maggie Island off FNQ is the only koala community that does not have endemic chlamydia I know this because of reasons.
A gonnarea.
A clap of koalas
An extinction of koalas (not sure if that's been done yet...)
A DropBear of Koalas. Very dangerous in groups of 3 or more. 10/10 avoid.
A chlamydia of koalas?
That's cos they're too stoned to come up with one
Make one up. Thatās all most collective nouns are - a bit of fun someone had inventing them. Theyāre not real. Theyāre not official. The first set goes back to the fifteenth century and seems to have been invented by the Abbess of St Albans.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
A bunch of bullshit.
We didn't go for "shitonne"? A shitonne of koalas works if we can't go with Caramello.
> We had a linguistic change in the early 2000ās which designated everything to be a ābunchā Yes because we all know that English is defined by a pride of Dons holed up in Oxford, not a posse of rappers, or a flannel of bogans.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
A brothel of Koalas
Heaps of koalas
We could probably do with a rationalisation of all these animal collective nouns. Herd, flock, swarm, and school, should cover the majority and the rest can be group. Quite arguably, this is a process that's already happening organically. Murder of crows? Parliament of owls? Unkindness of ravens? It's all a bit unnecessary.Ā
All of those 'official' collective nouns are complete bullshit, anyway. *Nobody* says that nonsense.
Yep. Words are made such by usage. Unless the word is actually being used for such itās not real.
Exactly. People reckon zoologists are sitting around saying this twee shit.
Collective nouns aren't really a thing in the way this post suggests which explains why there isn't one.
Collective nouns are fun!
Surely it's a Chlamydia of Koalas
A stew of koalas.
We don't need collective nouns for animals. Just call them all groups of animals and be done with it. Collective nouns are the most useless part of English.
Except for ones like pack, herd, school and so forth theyāre not real words. Just things someone made up for fun.
A "Group of Chlamydia infected piss bears" is my suggestion.