D&D: Collective Nouns for Huge Nerds
D&D, Teaching November 3rd. 2009, 9:47pm
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I’m arguably the geekiest English teacher at the University. There are a few other geeks in the office, but we are a small minority lost in the shuffle. There are a few bloggers, a few web designers, and perhaps even a few gamers, but I’m the only person with a d20 in their desk, that’s for sure. I’ve only been there a few weeks, but my geek credibility is already firmly established.
I was rather disappointed that I had to explain a Cthulhu mask I made in my elementary school supplemental class for Halloween to someone. How can I be productive in an office environment if people don’t know what “Cthulhu fhtagn” means? H.P. Lovecraft? Nothing? No one?
Could you imagine if I went out of my way to start working in fictional collective nouns for D&D monsters into conversation casually? Collective nouns are inherently nerdy. Special names for groups of nouns? Why bother learning them unless you are just trying to impress someone with some trivia?
Sometimes they are so good they are worth memorizing. My favorite collective noun is, “A murder of crows”. How often does that come up in conversation exactly that I get to share it? Not enough, and that’s a damn shame. There needs to be more opportunities to use these kinds of words.
This is just perfectly extra nerdy for an English teacher that plays the occasionally game of D&D. I could be sitting at my desk and someone happens to ask, “What do you call a collective group of rampaging orcs spreading chaos? I need a collective noun for orcs. Anyone?”
I’d casually answer, “The preferred term is ‘A rage of orcs’.”
Tell me that wouldn’t impress you. This just will not happen at my university job, and it saddens me.
One Response to “D&D: Collective Nouns for Huge Nerds”
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November 3rd, 2009 at 10:27 pm
I’ve always loved ‘a gaggle of geese’ because it’s one that most people know, and ‘a murder of crows’ is wonderful. On balance though, my favourite has ‘a parliament of owls’.