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Nouns (Collective) 01
When you write about 'A shoal of fish' the word 'shoal' is a collective noun.

Nouns (Collective) 01

Collective nouns signify groups, such as "team", "group", "orchestra" or "herd".

How many different types of noun do you know? Collective nouns can be fun. You can have a "litter" of kittens, a "herd" of elephants, and a "convocation" of eagles. And did you know that a group of crows is called a "murder"? Spooky!

Collective nouns can be a little bit troublesome grammatically. Remember that even though a sentence might be referring to many people or animals, the collective noun, or name of the group, is singular. So it would not be correct to say "the herd of elephants flatten the grass" because "herd" is singular. One way to test this is to remove the plural element, like this: "the herd flattens the grass". Here, you can see that "flattens" is the correct form of the verb, rather than "flatten". Likewise: "the orchestra plays", "the team wins again" and "the group succeeds".

See how much you have learned in your classes by playing the following quiz about collective nouns.

1 .
Find the correct collective noun for the following.
A ....... of penguins.
colony
flock
herd
school
The collective noun, e.g. "flock", is always singular. In a sentence, it takes a verb with a third-person singular conjugation, i.e. The flock of geese is flying south
2 .
Find the correct collective noun for the following.
A ....... of flies.
buzz
flock
hive
swarm
Although made up of many flies, the "swarm" itself is singular
3 .
Find the correct collective noun for the following.
An ....... of ants.
army
cluster
hive
navy
The collective noun here is "army"
4 .
Find the correct collective noun for the following.
A ....... of fish.
net
form
sea
shoal
A "school" of fish would also be a collective noun phrase
5 .
Find the correct collective noun for the following.
A ....... of porpoises.
army
pod
sea
shoal
"Pod" is the collective noun here
6 .
Find the correct collective noun for the following.
A ....... of elephants.
flock
group
herd
school
"Herd" is also used for cows
7 .
Find the correct collective noun for the following.
A ....... of birds.
aviary
colony
flock
nest
Although "flock" and "colony" are singular, the concrete nouns "birds" and "penguins" are plural
8 .
Find the correct collective noun for the following.
A ....... of bees.
army
hive
navy
nest
A "swarm" of bees could also be used as a collective noun phrase
9 .
Find the correct collective noun for the following.
A ....... of sheep.
flock
herd
pen
stable
"A flock of sheep" is a collective noun phrase
10 .
Find the correct collective noun for the following.
A ....... of geese.
gaggle
goggle
hiss
quack
"Gaggle" is the collective noun
You can find more about this topic by visiting BBC Bitesize - What is a noun?

Author:  Sue Daish

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