CROWS

 

A gathering of crows is called a murder. A murder of crows. True story.

A herd of cattle; a flock of sheep; a flock of seagulls; a pack of wolves; a school of fish; a plague of locusts; a company of parrots; a clan of hyenas; a panel of experts; a mission of monkeys; a neverthriving of jugglers; an ostentation of peacocks; a deceit of lapwings; a parliament of rooks; a tiding of magpies; an unkindness of ravens; a murder of crows.

True story. These are all official and bona fide collective nouns. English is a fabulous language. Not an especially neat or orderly one, granted, with all those irregular verbs (go, going, went, had gone) and odd spellings (that’s enough, though, I’m through with the rough stough). In the sentence, “The crow was delighted to eat,” the crow does the eating; in the sentence “The crow was delicious to eat,” the crow gets eaten. Why does switching one adjective for another, without changing its location in the sentence, change whether the adjective describes the crow’s experience, or someone else’s experience of the crow?

No, not a neat or orderly language, but a great language for poetry. A congregation of plovers; an exaltation of larks; a ubiquity of sparrows; an unkindness of ravens; a murder of crows.

A murder of crows. Because the sites of murders are popular gathering places for crows. A dead fox will draw a few crows, but a good murder, well... a good murder will draw a good murder of them.

Two enemies meet at a crossroads and fight; one kills the other and flees, leaving the body. The crows come to feed; the murder gathers to finish the work of the murderer.

Next week there will be another murder, at a different crossroads on the other side of town. The crows will shift their operations over to the new location. Crows are the ultimate migrant workers.