Collective Consciousness

Ah, so I've finally gotten a slew of nominations for my clever group names contest. It's actually not a competition, only an exhibition -- so please, no wagering. Here are some of the best entries so far.

My sister Ellen suggests:

A batch of chefs
A population of ecologists
A litter of veterinarians
A gross of sanitation engineers
A cord of loggers
A ring of jewelers

When I mentioned sanitation engineers to Olivia, she suggested "shitload" might be more appropos.

Julian adds the following suggestions:

An E(x)E(y)(x?y) of logicians
An updraft (or a babble?) of pundits
A gush of liberals
A thump of fundamentalists
A Lott of racist senators
An indignation of activists

Radley has posted a whole list on his blog, so I'll just repost my favorites:

A rash of brothel patrons
A collective of socialists
A categorizing-by-species-is-artificial- and-degrading-to-the-uniqueness-and-authenticity- of-each-individual-and-therefore-this-entire-exercise -is-empty-and-moot of deconstructionists
A barefoot-nun-playing-a-melted- purple-trumpet of surrealists

Visit Radley's comments page for many others suggested by his readers.

Kevin Grinberg adds the following:

An array of computer scientists
A compendium of librarians

Will informs me that, much as he might like "a bewilderment of philosophers," the Philosophical Lexicon has already designated "cohen" as the collective term for philosophers. (It's allegedly a portmanteau of "cohort" and "coven," but there are also many philosophers with the last name Cohen.)

Finally, I have a few more suggestions of my own:

A sample of statisticians
A ream of accountants
A casket of morticians