What do you call a bunch of folkies?

Subject: What do you call a bunch of folkies?
From: Peter T.
Date: 08 Feb 99 - 12:14 PM

I know, apart from various obscenities. But what is the collective? A collective of folkies (no!) A festival of folkies? A charivari of folkies? A charabanc of folkies? A collusion (collision) (collation) of folkies?

All I know is that a bunch of geese on the ground are a gaggle, and when they are in the air, they are a skein. (a collective thread of sorts)

Yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: What do you call a bunch of folkies?
From: rick fielding
Date: 08 Feb 99 - 12:24 PM

I've always thought I belonged to a "NURDSWORTH" of folkies.

Subject: RE: What do you call a bunch of folkies?
From: MMario
Date: 08 Feb 99 - 01:02 PM

I would think "a Harmongy of folkies" would do....

MMario

Subject: RE: What do you call a bunch of folkies?
From:
Date: 08 Feb 99 - 01:11 PM

A hootnanny of folkies

Bob S.

Subject: RE: What do you call a bunch of folkies?
From: Bert
Date: 08 Feb 99 - 01:18 PM

a Phew.

Subject: RE: What do you call a bunch of folkies?
From: Alice
Date: 08 Feb 99 - 01:22 PM

a session of folkies
a circle of folkies
a potluck of folkies
a conglomeration of folkies
a gathering of folkies
a campfire of folkies
a churchbasement of folkies
a porchful of folkies
a reminiscence of folkies
a falala of folkies
a chord of folkies
?????

Subject: RE: What do you call a bunch of folkies?
From: Bert
Date: 08 Feb 99 - 01:36 PM

A falala - I love it Alice.

Subject: RE: What do you call a bunch of folkies?
From: Kernow John
Date: 08 Feb 99 - 01:41 PM

A meeting of alchoholics anonymous
Baz

Subject: RE: What do you call a bunch of folkies?
From: Pete M
Date: 08 Feb 99 - 03:00 PM

Hell no Baz, that implies we've sworn off the booze!

A conviviality perhaps? A minzapint ? A lechery?

Pete M

Subject: RE: What do you call a bunch of folkies?
From: Barry Finn
Date: 08 Feb 99 - 03:08 PM

Ah, when you get that many folkies together people get scared & call it a revival. Barry

Subject: RE: What do you call a bunch of folkies?
From: The Shambles
Date: 08 Feb 99 - 03:48 PM

A Moan?

Subject: RE: What do you call a bunch of folkies?
From: RWilhelm
Date: 08 Feb 99 - 03:50 PM

Kumbayologists

Subject: RE: What do you call a bunch of folkies?
From: Allan C.
Date: 08 Feb 99 - 05:19 PM

An exaltation of folkies

Subject: RE: What do you call a bunch of folkies?
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 08 Feb 99 - 05:36 PM

A Clusterfolk?

Subject: RE: What do you call a bunch of folkies?
From:
Date: 08 Feb 99 - 05:50 PM

Utah Phillips once defined a folksinger as a person who sang by ear through the nose. Crew of Nose Warblers? Nest of Nasal Nightingales?

Subject: RE: What do you call a bunch of folkies?
From: Paul G.
Date: 08 Feb 99 - 06:39 PM

Around here we're a Folk Flock.

Subject: RE: What do you call a bunch of folkies?
From: Barbara
Date: 08 Feb 99 - 07:03 PM

a capella of singers an anarchy of folkies

Subject: RE: What do you call a bunch of folkies?
From: Alice
Date: 08 Feb 99 - 07:11 PM

I'm kind of liking a chord of folkies... kind of like a cord of wood.

Subject: RE: What do you call a bunch of folkies?
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 08 Feb 99 - 07:26 PM

There's also a flocculus* or a floc of folkies.

*flocculus: a small loosely aggregated mass

I'm voting for the chord, however, especially as a play on "cord" = 4 X 4 X 8. (See "What does a Mudcatter look like" thread.)

Sandy, here at the computer when he should be on the treadmill.

Subject: RE: What do you call a bunch of folkies?
From: bill mcgowan
Date: 08 Feb 99 - 10:02 PM

my wife calls us a bunch of old fogies

Subject: RE: What do you call a bunch of folkies?
From: Slider (inactive)
Date: 08 Feb 99 - 10:18 PM

How about a nostalgium of folkies?

Subject: RE: What do you call a bunch of folkies?
From: Les B
Date: 08 Feb 99 - 11:00 PM

Alice, a chord of folkies is pretty apt. I might also suggest a jam of folkies.

Subject: RE: What do you call a bunch of folkies?
From: Don Meixner
Date: 09 Feb 99 - 12:22 AM

An unemployment of Folkies

A lament of Folkies

A squabble Of Folkies ( You should be at a meeting of my Folk Club)

A Round of... A fugue of... A refrain of... A Key of...

The choices are endless.

Don

Subject: RE: What do you call a bunch of folkies?
From: catspaw49
Date: 09 Feb 99 - 12:26 AM

MUDCAT

catspaw

Subject: RE: What do you call a bunch of folkies?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 09 Feb 99 - 12:32 AM

A condom of folkies

Subject: RE: What do you call a bunch of folkies?
From: katlaughing
Date: 09 Feb 99 - 12:36 AM

How 'bout a "confabulation" or "confab" for short?

Or, a "passle" of folkies; a council (sounds too official!); a convergence ( as in harmonic convergence, remember?);

my Thesaurus has an old colloquial term of "gemot or gemote";

a conventicle sounds cool;

a troop; a covey; a string of folkies; a corps; a legion; mob; host; horde; rabble; heap.

What fun! Thanks!

kat

Subject: RE: What do you call a bunch of folkies?
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 09 Feb 99 - 01:02 AM

The old Jacobite song "Such a Parcel of Rogues in a Nation" is using the same word as Kat's "passel of folkies" -- seems appropriate, somehow.

Sandy

Subject: RE: What do you call a bunch of folkies?
From: The_one_and_only_Dai
Date: 09 Feb 99 - 04:13 AM

Don M: along the lines of your 'squabble', round here it's a Malcontent of Folkies.

Subject: RE: What do you call a bunch of folkies?
From: Peter T.
Date: 09 Feb 99 - 12:04 PM

Kumbayologists ranks the highest on my laugh meter! A friend suggests (along the same lines) Stewballeros. Another, who does not much like folk music suggests: "Band Musicians that Rowed Away from the Titanic and Lived to Sing About It". More of a definition than a collective.

Yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: What do you call a bunch of folkies?
From: harpgirl
Date: 09 Feb 99 - 04:12 PM

Heck I call em often! harpgirl

Subject: RE: What do you call a bunch of folkies?
From: Jerry Friedman
Date: 09 Feb 99 - 11:19 PM

A scare.

Subject: RE: What do you call a bunch of folkies?
From: Alice
Date: 10 Feb 99 - 10:39 AM

an 'altogethernow'
a 'one-more-time'
By the way, did you know that a 'school' of fish comes from a misprint of the word 'shoal'? Shoals of fish are of course common in folk lyrics, but today the word 'school' is common, but only because 'shoal' was misspelled and the word 'school' came into use. Really. I do NOT have my tongue in cheek. Christy the Wordsmith told me, and she is always right when it comes to word origins.

Subject: RE: What do you call a bunch of folkies?
From: Peter T.
Date: 10 Feb 99 - 10:47 AM

I learned how to spell it properly in shoal.

(not very good, but who can resist?) yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: What do you call a bunch of folkies?
From: Alice
Date: 10 Feb 99 - 11:00 AM

very punny, Peter... you went to the same shoal as Art, didn't you

Subject: RE: What do you call a bunch of folkies?
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 10 Feb 99 - 11:57 AM

Interesting, Alice. I suspect that the two words have a common origin, but "school" was a northern English (Viking) word, while "shoal" was a southern English (Anglo-Saxon) word. Well, when I say Viking and Anglo-Saxon, take that with a pinch of salt - all those waves of invaders, and such a long time ago!

But "skirt" and "shirt" have the same sort of origin (originally meaning "tunic"), and words like "brigg" are still common in Scotland, while "bridge" is the form in England.

Educational, isn't it?

Steve

P.S. How about a bunk of folchies?

Subject: RE: What do you call a bunch of folkies?
From: Bert
Date: 10 Feb 99 - 12:19 PM

We are such a diverse crowd that we need more than one term.

Muckle Mudcateers
A Gargle of Yodellers
A Coppice of Carol Singers
A cargo of Shanty Singers
A Remuda of Country Singers
A Bar of blues singers
A Paucity if Pipers (wishful thinking here)
An Archive of Old Fogeys
and I suppose that a collection of Art's fans could be called 'A Muse'

Bert.

Subject: RE: What do you call a bunch of folkies?
From: Mudjack
Date: 10 Feb 99 - 02:46 PM

I usually refer to "my folkie friends" and the non-folkies think I'm a communist or invironnmentalist. So I usually reply, "Thats right comrade, let's go save a tree." But the closer to the real truth is Folkies are flower children who have finally reached maturity. I kinda life old fogey folkies. Jack the mostly folk guy.... aka almost folkie?

Subject: RE: What do you call a bunch of folkies?
From: Alice
Date: 10 Feb 99 - 03:21 PM

bert, very amusing. liked it

Subject: RE: What do you call a bunch of folkies?
From: Pete M
Date: 10 Feb 99 - 03:46 PM

Well Alice, I think Christy the wordsmith ought to do better research. Like many words on English, "school" is an example of a word which has more than one meaning and origin.

The OED gives the following derivations

School as in learning and pupils derives from the Greek skhole meaning philosophy etc, via the latin schola meaning school, and the Old English scol

School as in shoal of fish is a Middle English collective noun for fish deriving from Middle Dutch schole

I think is clear that the prununciation of "Schole" has given rise to Shoal, whilst its spelling led to school.

Shoal it self is of course another example, Shoal ground is a quite different meaning from a shoal of herring!

Ah the joys of English!

Pete M

Subject: RE: What do you call a bunch of folkies?
From: Jerry Friedman
Date: 11 Feb 99 - 06:23 PM

Not quite, Pete. It's the pronunciation of "schole" that gave us "school" of fish.

"Shoal" of fish is from Anglo-Saxon "scolu", a multitude. The palatalization of the c sound (c goes to ch, sc goes to sh) is common in English, not Dutch. The Middle Ductch word "schole" is related to "scolu", but in Dutch the pronunciation didn't change--still like sk.

A related example is English "ship" and Dutch "schip" (pronounced like "skip"), whence "schipper" (the person in charge), whence our word "skipper", keeping the Dutch pronunciation. We kept both the pronunciation (sort of) and spelling in "schipperke", meaning "little captain", a Dutch breed of dog.

To strain for folk relevance--Scots often didn't palatalize where Southern English did, so Scots has "kirk" for "church", "whilk" for "which", etc.

The quiz will be next week.