Collective nouns in English
 

English is such a strange language, gotta love it.

List of collective nouns by collective term A-K - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
List of collective nouns by collective term L-Z - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Some of my favourites:

An unkindness of ravens
A shrewdness of apes
A parliament of owls
A drunkenship of cobblers
A murder of crows
A disworship of Scots

My favourite is "A load of Bollocks"

"A nucleus of physicists"
worst. collective noun. ever.

What a lot of people don't know or understand is that the English language has had so many influences from the constant invaders that we had in over 1200 years post BC that is only natural for it to be so expansive and confusing.

The fact that it has survived at all and become such a powerful language is astonishing considering the battering it has taken from other cultures.

Simple words like Pig (English) also became Pork (French) through Norman invasion but even the Normans submitted and spoke English in the end despite their domination socially and politically in the middle ages.

This is why English is a minefield of similar sounding words for many disconnected objects.

Bear - animal
Bare - naked

Rain - weather related
Reign - era of royal rule

both pronounced exactly the same but spelt differently and meaning completely different things.

Though
Through
Thought
Thorough

Another effect of it's vast number of influences is the number of synonyms. Little - small and big - large are just two examples of very common words that have the same meaning. I think the extent of the number of synonyms is pretty unique to English. While it might be confusing for learners of the language, it also allows for a big flexibility that enchants its poetic and lyrical potential.