A delightfully unexpected, lovingly curated ode to the unique collective nouns that adorn our language, from "a leap of leopards" to "a murder of crows" and beyond, from the inimitable voice behind Inside the Actors Studio
"I am madly in love with collective nouns! They make language so colorful and ticklish. . . . [An Exaltation of Larks] possess[es] an embarrassment of riches (wink wink!)." -Lupita Nyong'o, The New York Times
For those who have wondered if the familiar "pride of lions" and "gaggle of geese" were merely the tip of a linguistic iceberg, James Lipton has provided a definitive answer: here are hundreds of equally pithy, often poetic terms he has unearthed and collected into one exhaustive volume. Over years of painstaking research, he embarked on an odyssey that has given us a "slouch of models," a "shrivel of critics," an "unction of undertakers," a "blur of Impressionists," a "score of bachelors," a "pocket of quarterbacks," and many more.
Witty, beautiful, and remarkably apt, An Exaltation of Larks is a brilliant compendium of more than 1,100 resurrected or newly minted contributions to that ever-evolving species, the English language.
Inhaltsverzeichnis
I. The Beginning
II. The Known
III. The Unknown
IV. The Unexpected
V. The Game of Venery: First Move People, Places and Things
Professions
Home and Family
Daily Life
High Life
Low Life
Romance and Raunch
Medicine and Health
Academe
Science and Technology
Sports
Games and Recreation
Music
Stage
Screen
Arts and Letters
Religion
Politics and Law
Journalism
Business and Finance
Travel
Cops and Robbers
The Armed Services
Zoology
Cases in Point
Afterword
VI. The Game of Venery: Second Move
Index
