In Competition 2836 you were invited to coin collective nouns for the following: tweeters, hackers, hoodies, WAGS, environmentalists, bankers, MPs and contrarians.
This was by far the most popular competition we’ve run for a long time and it was cheering to see so many new names in the postbag. Inevitably, there was a fair amount of repetition: nest/cacophony/outrage/triviality of tweeters came up more than once, as did skulk/huggle/scowl of hoodies; bonus/wad/wunch/trough of bankers; knot/-perversity/Hitch of contrarians; vacuum/bling/surgery of WAGs; flood of environmentalists; expense of MPs; to list just a few.
I especially liked Graham Peters’s and John Doran’s ‘thong of WAGs’, Sarah Drury’s ‘concatenation of tweeters’, Poppy McLean’s ‘excess of MPs’, Una McMorran’s ‘mischief of contrarians’, Mike Morrison’s ‘Guardian of environmentalists’, P.C. Parrish’s ‘womenagerie of WAGs’, J.R. Johnson’s ‘tawd of WAGs’, David Farrant’s ‘rapacity of bankers’, Tracy Davidson’s ‘virus of hackers’, John MacRitchie’s ‘bristle of contrarians’, Patrick Smith’s ‘sorryority of WAGs’ and John O’Byrne’s ‘swarm of environmentalists’.
Alan Mercado kindly wrote to inform me that the Times published a selection of readers’ collective nouns for politicians a decade or so ago. His own contribution was a ‘dissemblance’; others included ‘a prattle’, and an ‘odium’. For the current comp Mr Mercado offered the excellent ‘bimboism of WAGs’. The winners below nab £15 each.
A thumb of tweeters
A murdoch of hackers
A lurk of hoodies
A trophy of WAGs
A panda of environmentalists
A plunder of bankers
An ego of MPs
An ain’t of contrarians
Chris O’Carroll
A WTF of tweeters
An algorithm of hackers
A scapegoat of hoodies
An ogle of WAGs
A hedgerow of environmentalists
A scrounge of bankers
A recidivism of MPs
A versus of contrarians
A.G. Atkinson
A drivel of tweeters
A nerdstorm of hackers
A provocation of hoodies
A spice of WAGs
A frack of environmentalists
A crisis of bankers
A pander of MPs
A gainsay of contrarians
Francis Harry
A tootle of tweeters
A nerditude of hackers
A hoodlummery of hoodies
A catfight of WAGs
A zealotry of environmentalists
A backstabbery of bankers
A blathering of MPs
An apocalypse of contrarians
Douglas G.
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