How in the world did someone come up with the idea of calling a flock of crows a murder of crows? Were they pickled to the gills? Why not call a flock of crows a FLOCK of crows? However, it is unlikely we will be able to change everything to flocks with the Supreme Court busy deciding cases of great import and chaos in our federal government. And with people arguing on Facebook(tm) and Twitter(tm), no one is noticing what we do. We can get away with changing the little stuff.
Let’s do it! A burrito of burrowing owls.
Let alter the names of the types of birds to something more interesting and alliterative. I humbly propose the following:
A Murder of Crows becomes A Cacophony of Crows
We can now have:
bird – flock name
——————————————————–
blackbirds – blintz
bobolinks – Big Mac(tm)
boobies – booger
budgies – bean dip
buntings – bunion
burrowing owls – burrito
ducks – DNA
elephants – finch (an elephant is technically not a bird.)
falcons – fallacy
finches – elephant
hawks – hemarrhoid
jays – jackhammer
larks – lithograph
loons – lutefisk
pigeons – pizza
starlings – strawberry
swans – sarcasm
woodpeckers – wart
You’ll have to excuse me, a bunion of buntings just flew by.
– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef
My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.
