Re: A ***** of lemmings... flock? TIA

On Thu, 2 Feb 2006 21:07:14 -0500, "ray o'hara" <roh@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


"Donna Richoux" <trio@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1ha5qa6.1w6od8jrsnmkxN%trio@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Al D <wmth2581@xxxxxxx> wrote:

Can anyone tell me what the collective noun for lemmings is (as in "a
**** of lemmings was stampeding to the cliffs of self-destruction")?

You might be good enough to sugest an alternative word for
"stampeding" in this context too.

Um, you might wish to avoid the sentence altogether, as lemmings *don't*
stampede over cliffs. I worked on this in alt.folklore.urban, as did
others, trying to straighten out the debunking information, and I don't
think we quite succeeded, so I can't refer you to a single page. The
(false) belief that lemmings deliberately commit suicide swim out into
water and drown has been around for a century or so; the (false) idea
that they leap off cliffs has apparently been around since a 1950s
nature movie by Disney needed to simulate such an event, and it was
easier for the crew to force the lemmings off a cliff than to make them
swim. (What's true is that they have been known to drown from time to
time in their mass migrations, apparently through miscalculation and
exhaustion.)

But I think I'd call them a herd.

--
Best -- Donna Richoux




Seeing as they have films of lemmings swimming out to sea you might want to
revise your opinion.

So you're saying the answer is "a film of lemmings"? I get it - kind of
on the sea surface?


When the overpoulate they will begin to migrate, when they encounte a stream
or river they swim across,when they encounter the sea they never reach the
other side.
They don't jump off cliffs and they don't know they are committing suicide
by swimming out to sea.

But the myth that it is a myth is long discredited.

--
Jim
a Yorkshire polymoth
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: A ***** of lemmings... flock? TIA
    ... "stampeding" in this context too. ... stampede over cliffs. ... easier for the crew to force the lemmings off a cliff than to make them ... In water, of course, they go through pods, schools, shoals, and ultimately to blooms. ...
    (alt.usage.english)
  • Re: A ***** of lemmings... flock? TIA
    ... "stampeding" in this context too. ... stampede over cliffs. ... Seeing as they have films of lemmings swimming out to sea you might want to ... But the myth that it is a myth is long discredited. ...
    (alt.usage.english)
  • Re: A ***** of lemmings... flock? TIA
    ... "stampeding" in this context too. ... stampede over cliffs. ... belief that lemmings deliberately commit suicide swim out into ... Seeing as they have films of lemmings swimming out to sea you might want to ...
    (alt.usage.english)
  • Re: Coastal Erosion -- Dun Aengus
    ... crumbly LIMESTONE cliff that is falling apart into cobbles without the ... help of the beach or the sea. ... Waves are steadily eating into that 300-foot ... Take a look at some 800-foot cliffs about 40 ...
    (sci.anthropology.paleo)
  • Re: Cliffs
    ... Cliffs all around. ... > There is thousands of small islands, numerous cliffs and sea bottom ... In sea you are safe. ... how stupid a human can be. ...
    (sci.anthropology.paleo)