It occurs to us that the world needs a collective noun that refers to a group of writers. (As in, “a murder of crows.”)
What would be your idea for a collective noun for writers? To get the idea ball rolling, check out a list they started over at Quill Cafe.
Cast your vote in the comments!
Hah! They didn’t have mine: A Critique of Writers.
This is by far the most brilliant collective I’ve seen. I was going to say a “Library” but this is awesome. I tip both my metaphorical hat and real one to you.
http://www.debelit.com
A Wort of Writers
(Wort is the liquid extracted from the mashing process during the brewing of beer or whiskey…the stuff that given time, temperature, and patience can become a pleasant experience or if not done right becomes sour vinegar)
alternately there are these:
A Wallop of Writers
A Wing of Writers
A Cheddar of Writers
A Russian Tea Party of Writers
A Significance of Writers
A Panini of Writers
A Caduceus of Writers
A Brick of Writers
A Snarglius of Writers
or…these personal favourites of mine:
A Meteorizŭm of Writers
A Blähungen of Writers
and
A Winderigheid of Writers
Those last three all mean the same thing in their respective languages (Bulgarian, German, and Afrikaans)…translation…
A Flatulence of Writers
Which is essence is what we are…digesting the mental food around us then bursting forth its by-product. If we’ve eaten well it may not be unpleasant at all, if we’ve eaten junk though it may be downright hideous. Either way we’re going to share it with everyone around us.
That made me laugh out loud and startle my cats! Those are completely inspired, Basil. Plus, Winderigheid is alliterative, to boot!
I’m not sure anyone can compete with Basil’s list!
Or maybe writers at a conference should be called a windfall of writers!
A friend said those gassy words sounded like the name of mystical swords…she’s right i think.
I dub thee Warrior Mistress of the Storm Realm, that with thy Blade Meteorizŭm thou mayest rend assunder the foe, that which putrifies the light with its stinky nastiness, and to skewer upon thy dirk Blähungen those who stand in the path creating gaseous green mist from within their bowels to corrupt all that is pleasant and nice, and not stinky. By mighty power of Winderigheid GO FORTH!!
A Flatulence of Writers. A Winderigheid. Basil, could you sound that word out phonetically for me? Is the ‘g’ silent?
Wind – er – i – head?
Because I love it, and shall use it extensively.
Though I also like A Procrastination of Writers.
According to http://en.termwiki.com/NL:flatulence
The pronunciation is VIN-der-hide with a roll on the ‘r’.
My friend Rynier in South Africa commented that this is the polite way to say ‘fart’ (like breaking wind, or flatulence), the shorter version used among kids is simply “Poep” pronounced “Poop”…so i guess for our SA friends to poop one’s pants in public does not carry the stigma as in other parts of the world.
One popped into my mind right away, before I saw where the list was: a quill of writers.
For crime writers:
Slayful of scribes
Slaughterhouse of scribes
General:
Shelfful of scribes
Legend of writers
Wishful of writers
Whimsy of writers
That’s a good point, we should break it down for genres. Horror writers, a scream of scribblers?
How about a foma of writers? “Foma” is from Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle, and means “harmless untruths.” Since that’s what we write (Lawrence Block titled one of his how-tos Telling Lies for Fun and Profit) it seems perfectly applicable.
People could walk into Starbucks, and one could ask, “What’s that group over there in the corner? They all have laptops and odd looks in their eyes”
“That? Oh, that’s the foma that meets here every morning. Want to mess with their heads? Go over and ask what they do. When they say they’re writers, go, ‘Really? Have I heard of you?'”
We really need a ‘like’ button.
I like a confusion of writers personally, but that might be a reference to my own style of writing.
The first thing that popped in my head was a “wit” of writers. But I like a confusion of writers, too!
I like Basil’s best. Writers are like a fine wine — or maybe that’s whine, depending on how our careers are going.
Just like the Australian expressing ‘whinging pom’ perhaps we could have a ‘whinge of writers’…
And on those bad days . . .
A block of writers.
A dummy of writers.
Or maybe that just describes how I’m feeling right now! LOL.
I was expecting people to go for more highfalutin nouns like Jim’s foma, like a dreamscape, panoply, whatever. I love the way we’ve all plunged immediately into potty humor and self deprecation. It must be Friday!
Sorry for opening that door early on…should’a waited and the high-falutins precede the low-flatulent.
You gave us creative inspiration, Basil, and we couldn’t do without you! 🙂
I’m finding Basil to be an inspiration no matter the topic, since I’ve started coming to TKZ. Lol.
My friend suggested a cacophony of writers. But I suppose that still falls under the self-deprecating category, since we’re all just sitting around making a bunch of noise. LOL.
Here’s what I came up with:
– A Worry of Writers
– A Wistful of Writers
– A Yearning of Writers
– An Anthology of Writers
A ______ Book of Writers (Insert genre before Book)
A Tool Shed of Writers (that one’s for me)
I’m a murder mystery writer so I would have to go with A murder of Writers. I’m sure all us murder mystery writers look like a bunch of crows anyway.
A hermitage of writers…or and eccentricity of writers.
A pluck of authors
A constacy of writers
A bard of authors
A fabler of writers
A Wrestle of Writers!
Our writers group is called WWF
aka Womens Writing Fellowship
A scribble of writers…or a conjunction of writers.
A Perspective of Writers! This is how writers should write, from their own perspective, so it will give us their take on what is being written about.
Great movie and an even greater example of what a story is really about.