4mo ago

Did anyone else learn that "a group of cats is called a Whisper?"

I'm trying to rationlize a false memory(?) Apparently a group of cats is actually a Clowder. Nowhere else on the internet calls it a Whisper?

I swear I was taught this the same day I learned 'a school of fish' and 'a murder of crows.' I remembered it all these years because I'd always think 'whispuuurrrr' in my head.

Help me out of my denial. 😭

27 comments

Does anybody actually use these goofy terms for groups of animals? Seems like they mostly exist as a novelty.
- Well they make some great puns/jokes.
  A man regularly was feeding crows in his yard in an attempt to get them to follow and protect him.
  He was arrested for attempted murder.
- Is there even a reason they exist? Like, is it actually important to a biologist or something to say "herd of cows" instead of "group of cows"?
  
  the explanation i heard once is that they were made by rich hunter fellas so they could determine who else was a rich hunter fella
- Murder of crows is the only one I've seen used unironically
  
  I've also used an unkindness of ravens.
- you've never heard flock of geese? herd of cows? school of fish? these are incredibly common.
  
  Those aren't the ones I'm talking about. Flocks, herds, and schools apply to many different kinds of birds, land animals, and fish, respectively. Why would anyone need to use the word "murder" instead of "flock" for crows? A cackle of hyenas? A conspiracy of lemurs? Let's be serious here. What's wrong with saying a group of lemurs?
- People use "pod of dolphins" relatively often.
The technical term for this is called a collective noun in English. I did some quick googling, which unfortunately returned a ton of AI slop that I won't repost here. But it did return tons of answers.
My thought is, your school probably did teach you it was called a Whisper, but who's to say what's the authority on collective nouns.
- For some reason a collective of cats sounds like some sort of organized crime group that wears suits.
  My cat doesn't wear a suit, though probably partakes in organized crime. 🤔
  
  This made me think of Animal Collective... Great, now I've gotta listen to Merriweather Post Pavilion when I get home
I remember reading through the list and thinking "wtf is a 'clowder,' hopefully they don't mean 'chowder*'"? That's at least 20 years ago. I've never heard "whisper."
*I have some familiarly with Boston, the land of "chowda," which is not know to contain cats.
I've only heard "clowder", "conference", and "pack".
This post gives me a good idea for a new name for a group of clams.
Never heard of a whisper, but never heard of a lot of these either (some sound made up by five-year-olds).
I've only heard it called a clowder. I have heard some jokey names for collective nouns, but I think only a few are semiofficial? Like the murder of crows, etc.
I've herd multiple (pun intended).
Whisper, I've only seen rarely. Clowder almost as rarely.
The most common I've run into is a Pride, when folks aren't just using a generic collective like herd or group.
But I have heard whisper used, though it was most often in a regular voice; neither whispered nor shouted. But sometimes it was whispered. Whispering about a whisper of whiskered cats just seems appropriate to me.
Imagine, you wake up and see a thousand cats surrounding your house. They sit, silently staring at your door. Wouldn't you want someone to come up behind you and whisper into your ear "don't open the door or that whisper will find its way in, and silently siphon our souls"? And then you could ask "why are you whispering, and how did you get in my house?"
And, of course, you would turn and there would be nobody there, only the fading outline of someone you can't quite remember because their soul was taken already, and memory drifts away when one is stolen.
School of fish is common enough to say that is what the group is called, just like many groups of mammals are herds or packs depending on whether they are predators or prey. A murder of crows is common enough in memes to say the term is currently used although a flock of crows is probably even more commonly used in the real world because flocks is used a lot for birds.
If it isn't commonly used then that isn't what they are called in the modern day or is only used in specific contexts.
Most of the things you will see online are either something that was used for a period of time in the past, used in a very limited context, or someone being creative on the internet and it getting repeated in those lists that are as reliable as the ones that attribute quotes to the wrong people. If you watch very many nature shows and haven't heard the term, then it probably isn't a common use and could be the latter.
Never heard of a whisper of cats before.
Maybe someone in your family started saying that and that's where you picked it up.

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