I once bought a book for its title, An Exaltation of Larks, which turned out to be a fun book on the names we humans have devised to describe groups of animals. A pride of lions, a herd of elephants, etc. I have since given away the book, but I still find fun in how freaking hilarious we are with the English language. A murder of crows, an unkindness of ravens and a sleuth of bears are particular favorites right now while a congress of baboons just makes me nod my head sadly. In addition to a pack of hounds, we also have a cry of hounds and, just to complicate things, a mute of hounds as well. I must say I like a charm of hummingbirds and a scold of jays as well as tidings of magpies. Someone hit the naming right on with a mischief of mice, a plague of rats, a glint of goldfish, a leash of greyhounds, a prickle of hedgehogs, an ambush of tigers and a lounge of lizards. Should you see a rogue band of wild emus around, they are properly called a mob and if gnus are gathered together on the corner, you could aptly report this as an implausibility of gnus.
As to the answer to the question in the title of this blog, according to the Inspector Morse series that ran on BBC, a group of pathologists is called, most appropriately, a body of pathologists.
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That very book is the reason I bought my own copy. It is nothing short of verbal deliciousness.
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