A clutch of the venereal

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32542, 27 February 1971, Page 10

A clutch of the venereal

An Exaltation of Larks. By James Lipton.

Angus and Robertson. 118 pp. The sub-title of this book is “The •Venereal’ Game,” which, the author informs us, is not misleading, since "venery” means “hunting” and this is a book of collective nouns, many of which found an origin (and generally also an end) in the vocabulary Of hunting. Most of them became popular after the Norman Conquest, when hunting was the fashionable sport for young gentlemen, who insisted on precision in naming the groups of animals they encountered. Many readers will find it hard to believe that such terms as “a crash of rhinoceroses” and "an impertinence of peddlers” are authentic and regular, but the author assures us they are, and appear with “a swarm of bees” and “a flock of sheep” in "The Book of St Albans” (1486). This book pretends to be an attempt to re-popularise this kind of quaint linguistic precision; the author voices regret that the spoken word is replacing the written, and that words themselves, with all their evocative power, are giving way to the image. The logical development is to invent some to characterise modem life, and the author has contributed a large number of suggestions, including "a bloat of hippopotami,” “a meWs of cathouses," and. "a mutter of mother-in-laws.” The text is generously supplied with appropriately grotesque illustrations, and the author occasionally intrudes with a scholarly and witty commentary. Some readers will be enticed by this delectation of venerealia to hatch out a brood of their own.