Question:
What is the collective noun for a group of philosophers; and for a group of sloths?
Do they mean the same thing?[1]
SLOTHALOGUE – A DIALOGUE OF SLOTHS
Slothcrates: What do you mean by collective noun? And how do you know that something is in a collective-noun category?
Linguisloth: Think of this: if you wanted to find a particular – subgroup of humans, you would glance over the whole human population and collect any that possesses one particular trait. In doing so, you form a collective. So, ‘jury’ is a collective noun for the group that forms, well, a… jury.
Collective nouns are often in the singular, implying that one word or set encompasses all individuals inside it. Now, I just made that up about the verb collect as a way of understanding ‘collective noun’, because we tend to find it much easier to understand actions as verbs than nouns. It’s my little trick - if you don’t know what a word means, if it is a noun, turn it into a verb - a doing word or action.
Sociosloth: <Interrupting> – hey I just googled, collective noun for philosophers and found there were three: A ponder, a confusion, and a wrangle of philosophers! Ha, ha, LMAO write now!!
Slothcrates: Are you really, literally, laughing your ass off? Can I see?
Linguisloth: Can I get back to answering your question Slothcrates..
It is often overlooked but there are three main types of collective nouns – those for humans, those for things, and those for animals. We often find collective nouns for animals more interesting because they are whimsy, if not satirical. Supposedly, we have murder of crows, parliament of owls, murmuration of starlings, and the list goes on.
A term of venery is an early phrase antedating ‘collective noun’ where hunters in medieval times would categorise their prey in terms of animal noises or even droppings found during the hunt. Moreover, …
Slothcrates: Sorry, can I stop you there?
Linguisloth: But I haven’t finished answering your question.
Slothrates: I had two questions originally – what do you mean? And how do you know?
Sociosloth: Hey! I think it will be a great idea if we come up with a collective noun for us!!! It would help to give our readers and followers a meaningful and relevant User-Experience.
I have done the research and these are the contenders, a snuggle, a slumber, a siesta, and a smile… of sloths. It looks like a snuggle of sloths wins by popularity.
Fallaciosloth: Oh great argumentum ad populum – appeal to popularity. If everyone jumped of a bridge, would you jump of as well?
Slothcrates: Huh? What? Well, if it was on fire and there was a risk to my safety, and after a calculus of probabilities I would jump of it was likely that I was going be injured if I stayed on the bridge. So not all argumentum ad populums or jumping on the bandwagons… are, necessarily fallacious.
I am more worried that snuggle, slumber, siesta and smile all start with the same letter, unlike other real collective nouns. It’s too coincidental.
Philososloth: – <thinking to himself> : mmmm, maybe philosophers and sloths truly, are - coextensive.
Sociosloth: – no, say, “mean the same thing” not “coextensive”.
Philosloth:– hey, how could you read my mind; I was thinking to myself?
Sociosloth - Social media experts are good and knowing what people want.
Linguosloth: Let’s get back to where I left off before.
I was about to say, although humans and sloths are biologically constituted to be classified as differing species of mammals, with collective nouns for humans, they refer to a subgroup of humans that are collected, or instantiate a particular characteristic. And there are many collective nouns for humans.
However, a ‘slumber of sloths’ is a misnomer because, on one hand, “slumber”, and all of the other contenders refer to the whole class of sloths, not a subgroup collected by a particular trait , which also is not necessarily instantiated in all sloths.
On the other hand, while humans can have many collective nouns applied to them, depending on what characteristics are picked out, sloth appears to have, or to need just one collective noun.
And Thirdly, like koalas, sloths, as you all know, tend to be loners. We prefer to think on our own and don’t easily form groups. We aren’t anti-group, it is just that we work for the team better on our own.
Sociosloth; Philosloth; Slothcrates; Fallaciosloth: all together … ohhhhhhhhhhh, good point. But how many hands do you have?
Fallaciosloth: She’s right! Since there is no single collective noun for the whole universe of humans, there should not be, indeed, there can’t be, a collective noun for a group of sloths. If there was, all sloths are collected in the group. It’s a reductio ad absurdum argument!
Philososloth: But hang on, it seems all animal collective nouns do, indeed, refer mereologically[2] to the part by virtue of the whole. Unlike collective nouns for humans. Think about it.
Slothcrates: Also, it seems to me that the collective noun for a group of philosophers is derived mainly from what philosophers do, e.g. ponder, confuse, wrangle. But we sloths, when humans think about us, don’t do much at all. Hence the name they gave us sloweth, …. Sloth.
Linguisloth: Yes, true. “Sloth” is nominalisation of the adjective slow. In Old Engish, new words were formed by turning them into a new noun with the addition of “th”. For example, moon to month, long to length. But we aren’t really slow, it’s just the human anthropomorphism of attributing a human characteristic and imposing it on to us. It’s their word; they are the ones who are slow or lazy. Not us.
Slothcrates: What is the corresponding but antithetical word for attributing to humans sloth-like qualities? It sounds like it should be something like slothomorphism.
Philososloth: Good question Slothcrates. And indeed Linguisloth, we do do a lot of work. Humans just cannot see our thinking.
Sociosloth: Well we have to change their attitude! Let’s give them a great UX feeling about all this.
Robosloth: Can I make a suggestion? For each class of collective noun – human or animal, and better - philosopher and sloth, try to list the necessary and sufficient conditions of what it is to be a member of that collective. What are the necessary and sufficient conditions to be a philosopher? If you aren’t sure what I mean by necessary and sufficient condition. Think about it. The answer my friend, is in the meaning of the words. Actually, try to think of anything that describes, defines or explains what it is and think of the necessary and sufficient conditions for it. What is it to be a sister? An uncle? A mammal? A bird?
Next post: we continue on with this series on What is Philosophy? and attempt to define what philosophy is.
[1] Comment from Sociosloth: the original manuscript had ‘Are they coextensive’ to refer to the collective nouns for sloths and philosophers. It was considered that ‘coextensive’ is obscure and hence it was replaced by, ‘Do they mean the same thing?’ Terms that are coextensive refer to the same object, or have the same referent; for example, ‘the Evening Star’ is coextensive with ‘the Morning Star’ as with ‘Venus’. It was also thought that coextension entails that philosophers are sloths, and sloths are philosophers.
[2] Edit from Sociosloth: Mereology is the study of parts, wholes, and the relations between them. I sure wish these philosophers would use words that common folk understand.
Philososloth: We do that so that in order to be precise and unambiguous. Would you rather be precise and not understood, or misunderstood and not be precise?
Sociosloth: Hey! Get out of my footnote!
Philososloth: well, you got into my mind and read it.