In this episode of Rob Words, Rob looks at the origins of strange collective nouns, terms like "murder of crows," "gaggle of geese," "swarm of bees," etc. Many of these words come from a list of 162 such nouns found in The Book of Saint Albans from the 15th century.
Some of the entries in St. Albans were in use at the time, while many were simply invented to make the list more entertaining. Much of the list never caught on, while others entered the English language and stayed there. Others still passed from usage for hundreds of years, only to become popular again (e.g., murder of crows). As you might imagine, many of them are onomatopoeic.
