Group Challenge: Words of Wit From a Rash of Readers

Readers are having much fun with the game of group names, of which the more familiar are a pride of lions, a school of fish and a nest of vipers.

In “An Exaltation of Larks: The Ultimate Edition,” James Lipton has expanded his original book to include 1,000 group names and added a history of the game.

It was my own inventions that prompted many readers to suggest theirs. Mine were an addition of accountants, a stage of actors, a command of admirals and a chatter of anchorpersons. Lipton’s choices were a column of accountants, a queue of actors, a bridge of admirals and a chain of anchorpersons.

The variety of the possibilities is demonstrated by several readers, including Patty Haynes of Thousand Oaks, who suggested a number of accountants, a show of actors, a fleet of admirals and a babble of anchorpersons.

For the same subjects, Louise Schuman of Fountain Valley suggested a detail of accountants, a show of actors, a swell of admirals and a head of anchorpersons.

I suppose a detail of accountants is acceptable, since accountants deal in details; a show of actors is blameless. A swell of admirals is obscure, but I suppose swell is meant to invoke the swelling sea. A head of anchorpersons does not ring my bell.

Anchorpersons is evidently the most difficult. Anita Rosenfield of Montclaire offers two candidates: a press of anchorpersons and a network of anchorpersons. I think of anchorpersons as being in the media, not the press, and a network of anchorpersons is off the mark.

Rosenfield also nominated a fleet of admirals, which is logical enough; also an expression of actors and a brood of actors. I don’t find either of those very satisfying, although certainly a group of Hamlets could be described as a brood of actors.

Glenn A. Marsh goes even farther afield with a bottom line of accountants, a gig of actors, a brig of admirals and a windbag of anchorpersons. Of those, a brig of admirals is the least feasible: One hardly thinks of admirals, collectively, as being in the brig. (How about a braid of admirals?)

Sheila Grattan offers a quarterly of accountants, a proscenium of actors, an epaulet of admirals and a dentifrice of anchorpersons. I suppose dentifrice refers to the mouthful of teeth that anchorpersons show us. The others are self-evident.

By way of illustrating the almost endless possibilities, Grattan encloses five typewritten pages listing 30 group names for accountants, 55 for actors, 85 for admirals and 41 for anchorpersons. The collection, while prolific, does not produce any examples that I thought inspired.

Getting away from my four examples, Martin E. Mullen Jr. submits a dash of runners, a press of reporters, a plot of conspirators, a bouquet of florists, a quiver of show girls, a harvest of farmers and a screech of viragoes.

Those aren’t bad. They are all evocative of their subjects and each is a vivid, graphic word. However, I would prefer a shimmy of showgirls.

Tillie Teller, a frequent correspondent of mine, is carried away by the challenge. She suggests a sum of accountants (which is better than my addition), a column of journalists, a shaft of satirists, a stack of models, a shelf of librarians, a roll of bakers (or drummers), a pocket of politicians, and others too numerous to list.

Tillie Teller’s name, which evidently is not her real name, since she uses it interchangeably with others, reminds me of Tillie Jones, heroine of “Tillie the Toiler,” a popular comic strip of the 1920s and 1930s.

Tillie was a pretty young thing who both modeled clothes and worked as a secretary. She was sort of a thoroughly modern Millie. A fellow employee, Clarence (Mac) MacDougall, adored her; he was her indefatigable suitor; but he was too short and too much the clown.

For 20 years Tillie rejected his proposals while dallying with a series of handsome gigolos. Meanwhile she never aged a day.

There must have been a group name for Tillie’s type. A tease of Tillies? A toil of Tillies? A bevy of working girls? A menace of sweet young things?

Just to keep the pot boiling, Tillie Teller (a bank of tellers?) adds a giggle of girls, a gabble of gossips, a rash of adolescents, a wrack of rockers and rappers; a waddle of women, a swill of drunks, a mash of traveling salesmen, a misery, merriment or maffle of men.

I find waddle in my dictionary, meaning “to walk with short steps, swaying from side to side, as a duck.” (I believe that should be like a duck.) I suppose some women do walk like that.

The word maffle is defined in “Webster’s Third New International Dictionary” as mumble or stammer ; also “to cause to become confused or bewildered.”

I plead guilty.