A Public Service Announcement about Words.

The editors here at standardkink wanted me to remind you that we are not just a website of writing and photos and poetry about whatever the hell it is that is wrong with me; we also provide the occasional public service. So here is some useful information for you to enjoy: Science Based Life

You know all those times when you have been driving to work and suddenly you have to stop your car right there in the middle of the freeway because there are a bunch of rhinoceroses just lounging around in the road? And so you roll down your window and shout at them, “Hey! Some of us have to get to work right now! We can’t all just lay around all day and let oxpeckers eat ticks off our skin!”

And then the rhinoceroses all turn their heads and look at you like you’re the jerk?

But then you eventually get to work, late, and you punch in, late, and your boss is there, eating a ham sandwich and looking at you all like Late again, huh? and you want to say, “Look, it isn’t my fault! There were rhinoceroses again!” but you don’t say any of that because you can’t because you do not know the proper term to describe a group of rhinoceroses? So you just slink off to your station on the assembly line, shoulders slumped and your face all tight with indignation about how small your vocabulary is.

Well the word you need in that situation, the word which will change your life on days such as that, is crash.

A group of rhinoceroses is called a crash.

You’re welcome.

Also possibly useful in your day-to-day life:

A group of monkeys is called a barrel (no joke).

A group of buzzards is called a wake (really, no joke).

A group of owls is called a parliament.

A group of cockroaches is called an intrusion.

A group of hyenas is called a cackle.

There are times when I find the English language to be needlessly frustrating and overly complex, and there are times when I bemoan its lack of the artfulness that produces in other languages things like simpatico or la petit mort or schadenfreude, but then there are times like this when I’m reminded that one of the great things about participating in such a complex living language is that we get ‘clank’ and ‘truthiness’ and we also get ‘bloat’ which is the way I feel after drinking too much dark beer and also what you call a group of hippopotamuses.

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