I hope that someone out there may be able to help me.
Is there a word that describes a group of collective nouns or, in other words, is there a collective noun for collective nouns?

Meryl

If you're thinking about things like "a skein of geese," "a pride of lions,"an exultation of larks," etc, they're called 'terms of venery.' The sport originated with a bunch of old brandy-drinking, cigar-smoking gents sitting around in their little gentlemen's clubs reminiscing about the old days when they didn't break their horses backs while out chasing down the wily fox.

they're called 'terms of venery.'

Terms of venery are a subset of collective nouns restricted to describing groups of animals. The asked for meta-collective noun probably doesn't fall into that category. FWIW, the TsC (tsuwm's count) for collective noun is 13 (general), 15 (special), link, and for terms of venery it's 1 (general), 2 (special), link. The first number is the number of Outlook results in the general category, and the second number includes specialty dictionaries, e.g., medicine, art. (Anyway, I added that to the mix, because Occam's razor be damned.) I suppose in these days of Inter-Web variability one should also add an access date, such as referenced in Wikipedia. For the record, the Dahilian semantico-typo-lexical constants for type-1 word, type-2 word, type-3 word are all 0 (zero). (Personally, I don't think tsuwm's method is complicated enough. The number of angels who can dance on the head of a pin ought to be taken into account as some sort of leavening number.

> Dahilian

very good.


> The number of angels who can dance on the head of a pin ought to be taken into account as some sort of leavening number.


at the very yeast!

jheem, I've been using the OL total, which is given in bold at the very top of the entry. link unfortunately, the eye is drawn to the General total, which is bolded and underlined.

I'm afraid it's an inherent flaw in the system.

>For the record, the Dahilian semantico-typo-lexical constants for type-1 word, type-2 word, type-3 word are all 0 (zero).

this is a shame; dal should begin impetrating various on-line lexicographers to get his terms included.
[drat, 'striket^hrough some text' no longer seems to work.]

I've been using the O[ver]L[ook] total, which is given in bold at the very top of the entry. unfortunately, the eye is drawn to the General total, which is bolded and underlined.

I guess, at the very least, we shall have to agree (gentlemanly) to disagree (academically). I propose that my modification to tsuwm's system be called JhIc (pronounced jynx) for Jheem's Inconstant ...

at the very yeast!

Trub, at the very lees.

but we digress..
-ron o.

My ear wants to hear something different. Is gentlemanlyly a word? If not, what is the proper word? You are saying that you have to agree in a "gentlemanly" way, not a "gentleman" way. What is wrong with my thinking? I'm confusing myself!

that's 'cuz gentlemanly can be either adjective or adverb, depending..

adv : in the manner of a gentleman he was sitting gentlemanly up in the ... taxi -- Saul Bellow

adj : having the character of or characteristic of a gentleman in nature, behavior, or appearance gentlemanly instincts
[W3]

more to the point, -ly can be either adj or adv suffix.

Is gentlemanlyly a word?

It is if you wish it so. But, I am confused by your confusion, Nowhere, nowhen, did I write gentlemanlyly, but gentlemanly. Are you referring to it qualifying way? In my ideolect, it is only an adjective. It does get a TsC of 19, or JhIc of 18/19, (link).

adv : in the manner of a gentleman he was sitting gentlemanly up in the ... taxi -- Saul Bellow

Not for me, though I like Saul's usage, but it's a shoehorned parsnipped word. Not all adverbs end in -ly and not all words which end in -ly are adverbs.

No, you did not use gentlemanlyly, I did! I was trying to say that gentlemanly, as you used it, didn't sound right to me, although it must be, if you used it that way. And it still doesn't. But I don't know what does, and gentlemanlyly was my "suggestion", although I am sure there is no such word. Don't bother with it; go on with what you were doing...

I have seen lovelyly in print and my brain was fine with it but when I tried to read it out loud my ears objected. The same for gentlemanlyly.

parsnipped Parsed and shortened?

And a parsnip in a pantry.

Two Turnip Doves

Three fresh heads

Four cauli(ng) flowers.

Five onion riiings

Sicks cheeses sweating.

Ate crackers singing

Ruh-roh. We slipped a cog. It's six geezers flaying.

It's six geezers flaying.

Everybody knows that se7en is pronounced six. Sheesh!

Ja ja. And te8eo is pronounced seven. Now who does the magnificent 7 ?

seven swans a swinging.

hey, swans are poultry. I should know.

Nine raisins dancing.

Quite a well risen raisin.