Grammar for Everyone - Barbara Dykes 2007

Collective nouns
Introduction
Part II The parts of speech

Definition: These are names for groups of things, animals or people, which go together, or have something in common.

For example:

A number of people in a group singing is a choir.

A number of cows in a group is a herd.

Note here that if the group word is singular then the verb following must also be singular.

For example:

Correct - The choir was rehearsing in the chapel.

Incorrect - The choir were rehearsing in the chapel.

There may, of course, be more than one group. In which case the verb will be plural.

The choirs were competing in the final.

1.3 Activities: collective nouns

Children enjoy discovering the group names of various kinds of wildlife, while adults often come across them in quizzes and crossword puzzles.

1. Which team can answer first? Give the collective noun for:

a. soldiers of a country (army)

b. many people gathered in one place (crowd/mob)

c. flowers (bunch)

d. people in a play (cast)

e. a group of sheep (mob)

f. people in a line (queue)

g. trees growing together (forest/wood/grove)

h. piglets born together (litter)

i. things thrown on top of one another (heap/pile/dump)

j. knives, forks and spoons (cutlery)

These questions can be asked and answered in writing and scored individually or in teams.

2. Students think of more collective nouns in a set time period.

3. Young students particularly, draw examples from the answers above. They should label their drawings with the correct collective nouns.

4. Students use a given number of the chosen nouns in sentences which are then read aloud. Humorous ones are very much enjoyed and most likely to be remembered.

5. Students research, using a dictionary, to find out the meaning of various words. They then write the thing that they apply to, for example:

library - books for borrowing

pack  fleet pride union

troop  train council formation

lineage compendium

6. Students choose a group word and act or mime it in the form of a charade, for others to guess, for example:

audience - they act watching, clapping etc.

7. Students should now fill in the third leg of their flowchart in their grammar exercise books.