It is a…
pride of lions
herd of elephants
murder of crows
dazzle of zebras (also accepted: herd, and zeal)
Thinking up humorous collective nouns for groups of particular animals was a popular Victorian parlor game, although some such “terms of venery” date back to English hunting culture in the Late Middle Ages.
Cool. Some others!
Escargatoire: snails
Drove: oxen
Boil: hawks
Tribe: sparrows
Clowder: cats
Congregation: alligators
Rafter: turkeys
Shrewdness: apes
Convocation: eagles
(^%&(^&* Bullitt.
A rafter is one of a series of sloped structural members (beams) that extend from the ridge or hip to the wall plate, downslope perimeter or eave, and that are designed to support the roof deck and its associated loads. A pair of rafters is called a couple. In recent buildings there is a preference for engineered trusses (trussed rafters) on the grounds of cost, economy of materials, off-site manufacture and ease of construction, as well as design considerations such as span limitation and roof load (weight from above).
Despite some fanciful explanations, the term “poop deck” comes from the the French “la poupe,” meaning “the stern (of a ship).” It also the roof of the aft cabin.
A flush deck is any continuous unbroken ship deck from stem to stern.
An ace-high straight flush such as A♦ K♦ Q♦ J♦ 10♦ is known as a royal flush, and is the highest-ranking standard poker hand. There are four possible royal flushes, one of each suit.
When Marilyn Monroe died in her locked bedroom, her psychiatrist used a fireplace poker to break a window, enter the bedroom, and discover the actress was deceased.
Not long ago I suggested “a diagonal of bishops.” Don’t think it’s caught on yet, though.
In play:
President James Monroe served in the Continental Army as a young man, and is seen behind Gen. George Washington, holding the American flag, in artist Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze’s famous but largely ahistorical painting.
Emmanuel Goldstein is a character in George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. He is the principal enemy of the state, having written the book The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism. Goldstein is a hero to modern leftist readers, who understand that 1984 is coming true as a right-wing conservative dystopia.
I like it.
In play:
The Monroe Doctrine was a U.S. foreign policy regarding domination of the American continent in 1823. It stated that further efforts by European nations to colonize land or interfere with states in North or South America would be viewed as acts of aggression, requiring U.S. intervention. In 1823 the United States had 24 states and had yet to include these 26, by admission date:
1836: Arkansas
1837: Michigan
1845: Florida
1845: Texas
1846: Iowa
1848: Wisconsin
1850: California
1858: Minnesota
1859: Oregon
1861: Kansas
1863: West Virginia
1864: Nevada
1867: Nebraska
1876: Colorado
1889: North Dakota, South Dakota (the only two states ever admitted on the same day
. - not even any of the original 13; cite = WKPD, List of U.S. states by date of admission to the Union - Wikipedia)
1889: Montana
1889: Washington
1890: Idaho
1890: Wyoming
1896: Utah
1907: Oklahoma
1912: New Mexico
1912: Arizona
1959: Alaska
1959: Hawaii
Listed to give an idea of what was still to come when the Monroe Doctrine was issued. At the same time, the Monroe Doctrine noted that the United States would neither interfere with existing European colonies nor meddle in the internal concerns of European countries.
ETA: ninja by jtur88 but my play still works.
There has only ever been one warship named the USS Hawaii commissioned to serve in the U.S. Navy, a Virginia-class submarine commissioned in May 2007. An earlier Hawaii, an Alaska-class cruiser, was under construction but cancelled and eventually scrapped after World War II.
Russian Typhoon class submarines are the largest class of submarine ever built. In commission since 1981, their submerged displacement is over 48,000 tonnes, and they have a length over 570 feet and a beam over 75 feet. By comparison, the US Navy’s Ohio class submarines, in commission since 1981 and the largest ever built for the US Navy, have a submerged displacement of 18,750 tonnes, and a length of 560 feet and a beam of 42 feet.
The source of the NATO reporting name of Typhoon remains unclear, although it is often claimed to be related to the use of the word “typhoon” by Leonid Brezhnev in a 1974 speech while describing a new type of nuclear ballistic missile as a reaction to the Ohio class subs.
The Leonids are a prolific meteor shower associated with the comet Tempel–Tuttle. The Leonids get their name from the location of their radiant in the constellation Leo: the meteors appear to radiate from that point in the sky. The Leonids are a fast moving stream which encounter the path of Earth and impact at 72 km/second. Larger Leonids which are about 10 mm across have a mass of half a gram and are known for generating bright meteors. An annual Leonid shower may deposit 12 or 13 tons of particles across the entire planet.
Good trivia! One year I went out at night, far, to a dark spot an hour’s drive away, brought blankets and my wife and son, and we lay down flat on our backs on the ground and enjoyed a fantastic Leonids light show! It’s always much better after midnight. We went out at 1am. It’s a great experience, highly recommended. If you go, check that the night sky is clear.
Still in play:
Leonid Brezhnev was the first person to be both Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet (nominal head of state) and General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (de facto head of state) at the same time.
The Moscow Summit of 1972 was a summit meeting between President Richard M. Nixon of the United States and General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. It was held May 22–30, 1972. It featured the signing of the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, the first Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT I), and the U.S.–Soviet Incidents at Sea agreement. The summit is considered one of the hallmarks of the détente at the time between the two Cold War antagonists.
Moscow, Idaho, is the home of the University of Idaho, whose athletic teams are called the Vandals.
From the third to the fifth century. the Vandals, having originated in Scandinavia, pretty well had the run of Europe, from Constantinople to Spain to North Africa, finally putting the final nail in the coffin of Rome.