"Murder of Crows" or The Collective Corvidae
(Reprinted from Facebook. Signature omitted.)
Since I'm a librarian (or, as you may well remember, a know-it-all too happy to butt into any conversation), I'd like to put in my two bits inspired by some recent Facebook commentary: the phrase "murder of crows".
Steve B., in one of his typical witticisms, used the phrase "badelynge of ducks". I'd never heard of such, though got it implicitly; "badelynge" resembles words from Chaucerian-era English; that it described more than one of a kind of bird (think "The Parliament of Fooles") helped my intuitive understanding. I asked Steve about it anyway: was "badelynge" a word like a "pride" of lions or a "murder" of crows? Steve wrote back that he knew "murder of ravens" was "correct" but questioned "murder of crows". And so a multi-pronged reference question was born. It turned out we were both right. Sort of.
First off: there is such a thing as a "badelynge of ducks". The Forest Preserve District of Cook County (Illinois) site has a page devoted to "Medieval Names of Animals" (http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/natbltn/400-499/nb449.htm) which suggests this. Other sites also say the phrase exists and, though archaic and obscure, give it as a precursor to the phrase "paddling of ducks". Given that "b" and "p" are labial sounds, I can see where "badelynge" might become "paddling". And what does a bunch of ducks do but paddle around in the water when they're not flying?
Yet Steve and I had heard the term "murder" applied to two related kinds of birds, "cousins" among Corvidae, if you will (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corvidae). It would seem that "murder" can be applied to several corvids, though the answers differ from source to source. A page on the U.S. Geological Survey site (http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/about/faqs/animals/names.htm) suggests "murder" can be applied as a collective noun to crows and magpies (magpies are also corvids). The same page also says that more-than-one raven is an "unkindness". This jogged my memory that I had seen the phrase "unkindness of ravens" before. There is a 1985 Ruth Rendell mystery entitled _An Unkindness of Ravens_ though this doesn't explain the origin of the phrase. "Murder of ravens" exists here and there in popular usage, and is included in a list of collective nouns on a British site (http://www.hintsandthings.co.uk/kennel/collectives.htm) but the author adds that not everything on the list is "authenticated".
Why "murder", then? The PBS "Nature" program had a episode on crows entitled (not too coincidentally) "A Murder of Crows" and had a page on its website that hypothesized why more-than-one crow is called a "murder". Corvidae in general get a bad rap in mythology around the world. Ravens were once white until Apollo and was turned his sacred raven (or crow) black; in the bird's defense, it was delivering bad news about Apollo's lover Coronis's disloyalty and the sun god had a hissy-fit. There was that raven that failed to return to Noah after being sent on recon (unlike the dove that came back once, with an olive branch, before disappearing for good). This story also occurs in _The Epic of Gilgamesh_ although the source I read suggested that the raven was not so much faithless as smart enough to immediately set up its homestead (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crow#In_mythology). Crows were thought to gather and judge, jury and execute any offending member of their group. They are predators and carrion-birds, and associated with "battlefields [and] cemeteries" (re: the "Nature: A Murder of Crows" ep'). Crows may eat eggs and other birds but nothing I've seen suggests they're cannibals.
Other collective nouns that may describe more-than-one corvid: "storytelling of crows", "clattering of jackdaws", "scold of jays", "tidings" or "tittering of magpies", "conspiracy of ravens", or "clamor of rooks". Many collective nouns applied to corvids seem to play on their loud calls and the racket they make when they gather. Ravens and crows get lumped together because of their similar appearance. However, the plenitude of collective nouns for corvids seems to point out they're more easily thought of in the plural than the singular.
Fun factoid for pop music listeners: one of the lyrics in "All This Time", the title cut from the Sting album, references a "murder of crows" . I Googled "murder of crows lyrics" trying to find the Sting lyric because it was the only popular usage that I remembered. The same search will also give a link to the Counting Crows song "Murder of One". Although I'm not at all familiar with the latter, it does contain the lyrics "counting crows/one for sorrow/one for joy...seven for a secret never to be told". This is a fortunetelling system using a counted magpies (related to crows) and is common to British and Irish folklore (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Magpie). Those of you who are up on your Mother Goose might recognize it.
Since I'm a librarian (or, as you may well remember, a know-it-all too happy to butt into any conversation), I'd like to put in my two bits inspired by some recent Facebook commentary: the phrase "murder of crows".
Steve B., in one of his typical witticisms, used the phrase "badelynge of ducks". I'd never heard of such, though got it implicitly; "badelynge" resembles words from Chaucerian-era English; that it described more than one of a kind of bird (think "The Parliament of Fooles") helped my intuitive understanding. I asked Steve about it anyway: was "badelynge" a word like a "pride" of lions or a "murder" of crows? Steve wrote back that he knew "murder of ravens" was "correct" but questioned "murder of crows". And so a multi-pronged reference question was born. It turned out we were both right. Sort of.
First off: there is such a thing as a "badelynge of ducks". The Forest Preserve District of Cook County (Illinois) site has a page devoted to "Medieval Names of Animals" (http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/natbltn/400-499/nb449.htm) which suggests this. Other sites also say the phrase exists and, though archaic and obscure, give it as a precursor to the phrase "paddling of ducks". Given that "b" and "p" are labial sounds, I can see where "badelynge" might become "paddling". And what does a bunch of ducks do but paddle around in the water when they're not flying?
Yet Steve and I had heard the term "murder" applied to two related kinds of birds, "cousins" among Corvidae, if you will (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corvidae). It would seem that "murder" can be applied to several corvids, though the answers differ from source to source. A page on the U.S. Geological Survey site (http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/about/faqs/animals/names.htm) suggests "murder" can be applied as a collective noun to crows and magpies (magpies are also corvids). The same page also says that more-than-one raven is an "unkindness". This jogged my memory that I had seen the phrase "unkindness of ravens" before. There is a 1985 Ruth Rendell mystery entitled _An Unkindness of Ravens_ though this doesn't explain the origin of the phrase. "Murder of ravens" exists here and there in popular usage, and is included in a list of collective nouns on a British site (http://www.hintsandthings.co.uk/kennel/collectives.htm) but the author adds that not everything on the list is "authenticated".
Why "murder", then? The PBS "Nature" program had a episode on crows entitled (not too coincidentally) "A Murder of Crows" and had a page on its website that hypothesized why more-than-one crow is called a "murder". Corvidae in general get a bad rap in mythology around the world. Ravens were once white until Apollo and was turned his sacred raven (or crow) black; in the bird's defense, it was delivering bad news about Apollo's lover Coronis's disloyalty and the sun god had a hissy-fit. There was that raven that failed to return to Noah after being sent on recon (unlike the dove that came back once, with an olive branch, before disappearing for good). This story also occurs in _The Epic of Gilgamesh_ although the source I read suggested that the raven was not so much faithless as smart enough to immediately set up its homestead (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crow#In_mythology). Crows were thought to gather and judge, jury and execute any offending member of their group. They are predators and carrion-birds, and associated with "battlefields [and] cemeteries" (re: the "Nature: A Murder of Crows" ep'). Crows may eat eggs and other birds but nothing I've seen suggests they're cannibals.
Other collective nouns that may describe more-than-one corvid: "storytelling of crows", "clattering of jackdaws", "scold of jays", "tidings" or "tittering of magpies", "conspiracy of ravens", or "clamor of rooks". Many collective nouns applied to corvids seem to play on their loud calls and the racket they make when they gather. Ravens and crows get lumped together because of their similar appearance. However, the plenitude of collective nouns for corvids seems to point out they're more easily thought of in the plural than the singular.
Fun factoid for pop music listeners: one of the lyrics in "All This Time", the title cut from the Sting album, references a "murder of crows" . I Googled "murder of crows lyrics" trying to find the Sting lyric because it was the only popular usage that I remembered. The same search will also give a link to the Counting Crows song "Murder of One". Although I'm not at all familiar with the latter, it does contain the lyrics "counting crows/one for sorrow/one for joy...seven for a secret never to be told". This is a fortunetelling system using a counted magpies (related to crows) and is common to British and Irish folklore (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Magpie). Those of you who are up on your Mother Goose might recognize it.