Herd is the Word!

August 14, 2013 · Filed under grandchildren, humor, nature studies, prompts, Uncategorized · Tagged 20 Lines a Day, 3rd world occupations, A Worda week Challenge, names fro groups of Animals, prompts, what grand children say

When I saw the word of the week, I just came up with nothing. I haven’t seen a herd of anything in a long time. Even a herd of cattle out in thee country has been a rare occurrence.

Then I thought of some conversations I have had with my grandchildren lately. I think that “herd” has become such a commonly heard word for a group of animals that little children often don’t know that there are different words for different groups of animals.

I have laughed as my preschool to 1^st grade children told me about herds of anything from bears to rabbits lately and I began to realize that I did not know all of the words for groups of animals either.

I decided to look a few up, so I could tell them.  I started to find a dictionary or some resource, I began to realize how many words for “herd” that I already knew. A swarm of bees, a brood of hens, a pack of wolves, a gaggle of geese or a flock of sheep.

I began to wonder why all these different names for a group of animals came to be. That is a question I have not yet answered. What ever the case, I will know when my grand children talk about a “herd” of something, that means they saw “a whole lo of them!”

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