OK, hands up all those who know the collective noun for jellyfish, or bees (other than a swarm), or turtles -- and no peeking in James Lipton's wonderful compilation "An exaltation of larks".

Accoerding to a report in today's Melbourne Age (copied from the Telegraph in London), an English headmaster, Steve Palin, has just published "A menagerie of animals", a successor to his "A dissimulation of birds".

And the answers (according to Palin) are: a smuck of jellyfish (Lipton has 'smack'), a grist of bees, and a bale of turtles (apparently a mediaeval miscopying of a 'dule' of turtle doves).

Add to that' a body of pathologists' - ;^)

[anti-YART shield at the ready]

"a smuck of jellyfish (Lipton has 'smack')"

I love collective nouns. And I'm guessing that a smuck of jellyfish is a sly reference to Smuckers (sp?) jelly.

Can anybody confirm or refute that speculation?

a smuck of jellyfish (Lipton has 'smack')

Smuck would be the past tense. This would refer to jellyfish that had been washed up on the golden sands of the beaches of neglect and were all dried out for lack of a small girl who made a difference to throw them all back in the ocean.

I love collective nouns. And I'm guessing that a smuck of jellyfish is a sly reference to Smuckers (sp?) jelly.

If it's not, it should be! (Even though we're a Wolverine family, I must give credit where due. )

lack of a small girl who made a difference to throw them all back in the ocean.

um . . . aren't most jellyfish poisonous? It wouldn't really be safe for a little girl to go around picking them up. Plus, they're kinda squishy and slimy. Most girls I know would stay as far away as possibly from it.

Jellyfish sting when they're touched in water ... dried out on beach they are pretty pathetic and when you touch them they feel sort of like Jell-O (gelatin mold) that's been left out on the counter overnight. To pick them up use a towel to protect your hands from a rash.
No wimpy girls around here!
Our northern beaches get jellyfish ... much different from the Man-O-War type found further south!
wow

Jellyfish sting when they're touched in water

Having grown up on the same beaches wow refers to, I always thought this was the case, and that Jellyfish only sting when in the water. In fact, many of the jellyfish on New England beaches are not poisonous, so we used to have some pretty amazing jellyfish fights as kids, during certain times of the summer when they were everywhere. I can attest that, in those circumstances, it was definitely a smack of jellyfish. I'd have to concur with Jazzo that the little girls were less interested in such activities than us nasty boys.

Our northern beaches get jellyfish ... much different from the Man-O-War type found further south!

It turns out that these beasties' stingers are pretty nasty for quite a while after they've washed up. I found a Man O' War about six feet across in Massachusetts when I was a kid, and my inexperience I didn't avoid the long tendrils coming off it. They looked like very long strands of red hair, but wherever they touched skin they hurt worse than just about anything - and taking them off didn't help a bit.

Believe it or not, jellyfish are an item in Chinese cuisine, usually as an appetizer or part of an appetizer. Although I have eat (and continue to eat) a good many strange things, I draw the line at jellyfish, insects and grubs.

I draw the line at jellyfish, insects and grubs.

Bobby : So you aren't planning to apply to vie for the $1,000,000 prize on the "Survivor" TV show?
wow

The only known man-o-war jellyfish to float near the coast of the little seaside village where I used to spend my summers, stung my younger sister on her legs, side and her arm and hand where she tried to push it away. I got stung myself while picking the severed threads off her skin, so I know for a fact that jellyfish tentacles sting even when out of the water and not attached to the jellyfish any more. But the most hazardous thing came later, since I had to take my sister home and clean her skin with ammonia in order to neutralise the poison. Even today, my sister says those fumes were much much worse than the jellyfish sting!

Dear Marianna,
You must have a type of the Man-O-War jellyfish. Our N.H jellies have no floating ray bits.
Not to gross anyone out ... but in an emergency ... I have been told ... well, er .. um .. human urine relieves the sting.
How about it, Dr. Bill ?

In Hawaii many carried a small container of baking soda, which, when mixed with the water on the skin gives some relief until the sting can be medically treated.
wow

Jellyfish sting remedy
The Chesapeake Bay gets infested with jellyfish in summer. When we used to vacation in a cabin on the bay and get stung by them, the remedy was to sprinkle meat tenderizer powder on the stung area. Worked very well. The active principle in the tenderizer is an enzyme derived from papayin. Comments, Dr. Bill?

Since many jellyfish are colonies, is one a collective noun?

oh, jazzo, how disappointing to learn even intelligent young men still have stereotype ideas about women and girls!

Like Wow-- i played with Jelly fish-- the NY beaches would often have printed up info if the jellyfish were Man 'o war-- but usually NY was too cold. My favorite was "Popping" the air bladders on sea weed-- They wouldn't pop if the sea weed was wet, moist and soft-- and they lost the "pop" if the sea weed was too dry-- we would wander up and down the beach looking for sea weed just in the right state...I bet Wow did that too! but i have no idea what kind of sea weed it was-- Hello, bean..

how about horse shoe crabs-- do them come in herds, too? It seems it in summer when they come to lay their eggs..

and the dead one, who's insides had been eaten out by the gulls-- they made great helmets.. or sheilds for all the knights of your sand castle!

oh, jazzo, how disappointing to learn even intelligent young men still have stereotype ideas about women and girls!

In Jazz's defence, helen, he did say Most girls I know would stay as far away as possibly from it. That's not a stereotyped assumption, that's a statement of personal experience.

The seaweed with the little bladders that make it float is named "fucus" (with a "y" sound before the first "u"!!!!!
I was told by a pharmacist that meat tenderizer would inactivate the toxin of jelly fish nematocysts, but never had any confirmation of this, though it sounds reasonable. I am refraining from ribald comment about urine remedy.

Thanks Bill-- i recognize 3 or 4 different types of sea weed-- and even have been know to eat it-- but I only know two "names": Kelp and Carrigeen-- both of which i have eaten, but I don't know if i would recognize them at the sea shore!

I've eaten kelp chopped, and made into a vegetable pate-- quite good, and carrigeen as a "blache monge". a jellied, milk dessert.

Dear of troy: Back in the depression kids with boats used to make a good bit of money harvesting the right kinds of seaweed. One they called dulce. It was purplish and had fairly fine somewhat flattened multiply branched strands.
It is interesting that the Japanese first made monosodium glutamate from sea weed. I do very much like Accent in soups. The scare about "Chinese restaurant syndrome" twenty years ago must have been caused by gross misuse of it.

The collective noun for a group of Bankers is a Wunch! (linking the recent spoonerism thread), though this appelation probably only works in UK english.

Rod Ward

The Chesapeake Bay ...jellyfish ...get stung ...the remedy was meat tenderizer powder on the stung area.

In my youth there was no meat tenderizer! Accent and the like are a product of the 1950s I believe. Anyone know for sure?
People living in the southerly states used papaya slices laid on meat for awhile then removed before cooking. Papaya, I understand, has the enzymes that do the job to make the meat tender.
wow

Called "papain," strangely enough -- eat *too* much papaya and you'll eat your own belly. :)

Meat tenderizer

We used Adolph's, which contains, I believe, papain, as I noted in the post which started this tentacle on the original post. That was in the mid-70's, but I know Adolphs is older than that, but don't know how old. Of course, we would not dream of using Adolphs on a steak, since it tends to give it a mushy consistency even if it does make it more tender.

And while I'm on the subject, another story.

I had a young woman work for me some years ago who had previously been employed as a secretary by a lawyer who specialized in tort cases. One of the reasons she was no longer working for the lawyer was her difficulty with the English language. As an instance of this, she noted the time she wrote up a brief in which the complainant was suing a furniture store. As she wrote it, the plaintiff bought a new mattress and spring which, when they were delivered, he duly installed on his bed. The first time he and his wife slept on it, they did not find it entirely comfortable. His wife suggested they take off their pajamas, which they did, but no help. He then began to wonder if it was the mattress or the spring which was the problem, so he suggested they take off the mattress and look at the spring. While doing so, he got excited looking at his wife's breasts as they were heaving the mattress about, so he grabbed her and got her down on the bare springs. They were enjoying themselves greatly, when "HE GOT HIS TENTACLES COUGHT IN THE SPRING" and injured himself badly.

Did they use Adolph's in Dildo? That would explain the name. (see: all over the map)

TENTACLES COUGHT..

Time for a chorus of Spring is in the Hair