6.6.11

The Collective.

All right, this argument has been going on for way too long on Twitter. It's time to correlate some data.

The topic of discussion is collective nouns. A pack of wolves, a pride of lions, a murder of ravens, a parliament of owls. These are some of the most beautiful structures in the English language - a spot where the rules and usage of words buckled together and warped, frozen into an immortal piece of poetry, trapped in the dictionary.

Today, we turn our question towards nerds. What do you call a gathering of nerds?

(Calling them a "gathering" is actually an excellent suggestion for the card-playing variety of nerd, but if it were that easy, I wouldn't need to write this blog post about it.)

So, here are some options:

  • a convention of nerds
  • a network of nerds
  • a fanbase of nerds
  • a drive of nerds
  • a hive of nerds
  • a usegroup of nerds
  • a forum of nerds
  • a verse of nerds
  • an escape pod of nerds
  • an away party of nerds
  • a canon of nerds
  • a basement of nerds
  • a function of nerds
and my three favourites:
  1. a channel of nerds (chat rooms, primarily, but the term echoes back to the original nerds of ham radio)
  2. a core of nerds (CPU core, kernel core, hardcore, nerdcore)
  3. a choir of nerds (includes choral nerds into the group, and also suggests how nerds' voices are heard)
There's the list. What's your suggestion? Better yet, what's your vote? I'd really like to decide on an answer to this question before it gets out of hand.

(Oddly enough, the collective noun for "dorks" was simplicity itself - a fellowship. Go figure.)

6 comments:

koko said...

I prefer the "herd of nerds".

Daren kavich said...

I propose a couple of different options if I may: a mumble of nerds or a whine of nerds. Although if I had to pick from your more politically correct list I would go with a network of nerds.

lazym said...

I've no idea how this popped into my mind, but:

a puddle of nerds

Of your list, I like "choir of nerds" the best.

(for some reason, the ones with more than four words - a (blank) of (blank) - such as "away team" don't work as well as those with just four)

Andrea said...

I am pretty sure A Choir of Nerds will be the 13th or 15th book in George RR Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series.

Scott P said...

how about "An Array of Nerds"

Anonymous said...

I'm kind of torn between a "network of nerds" and a "channel of nerds". Both to me describe what nerds to best. :)