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Why did medieval people invent so many collective nouns? (2023) (weirdmedievalguys.substack.com)
8 points by crescit_eundo 13 days ago | hide | past | favorite | 2 comments




The one I like is that medieval monks associated a lion with having pride, hence a pride of lions. Reality is different, lions often will not hunt directly but take the killings of hyenas. There is no pride in that. [0]

The other fun fact about medieval monks is that they classified fowls as a combination of plant and meat. Humans did not know about bird migration. When winter came, they though birds trans-mutated into tree branch and back into birds during spring. This means they are not 100% meat. Fowl could be eaten in place of fish or plants during Lent.

[0] https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/lucy-cooke/the-trut...


"Murder of Crows" is my all time favorite. So colorful.



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