Hello everyone, welcome to the class. Do you know what are group nouns? Have you ever heard
this before? Maybe you've heard of collective nouns, which mean a set of something or a
group of something. We can all call them with one word. We can all the things with one word.
Stay with me in this lesson, my name is Michelle and I'm going to help you out today with collective
nouns or group nouns. I'm going to teach you some very useful words.
Let’s look at some of the words that we have on the board. So cast, have you heard
this before? Cast means a group of actors or performers who perform together in a movie
or may be in a play. This is a group of performers or a group of actors. So whenever I go to
watch a movie, before that I always check the cast of the movie. Is the cast really
exciting? Are the actors, the same actors that I'd like to watch? So before I went to
see the movie reverend, I saw the cast and I was very excited to watch it coz it was
the actors that I was really excited to see. Let’s look at the next word, company. This
has a similar meaning like cast. Cast is a group of actors or performers, the same way
company talks about a group of actors who perform in different plays. So the same group
of actors will perform in different plays and we are not talking about a movie here.
We are talking essentially about plays. Any of you who has good knowledge of dramatics
or drama would surely understand this. so there are two plays, may be, The Lost and
The colours of Grey and you go to see both the plays and you find the same group of actors
performing, then that group of actors would be called a company. Same actors in different
plays.
Let’s look at the third collective noun or the third group noun that we've got and
that is crew. So a crew of... have you ever heard this? A crew of something. Well it could
be a crew of air hostesses or a cabin crew. Have you ever heard this word ever, while
travelling? While using the aircraft, you must have heard the word cabin crew. So cabin
crew are the people who attend the passengers on the aircraft. But the word crew without
cabin can refer to a group of people, either on a ship or on an aircraft who are serving
together. So service men on a plane or a ship.
Awesome let's look at the next one, platoon that's how we pronounce this word, platoon.
It refers to a group of soldiers who are led by a lieutenant. So this essentially for a
group of soldiers and you can use it when you are trying to talk about the army. Group
of soldiers. So let's move to the next word that we have a gang. That is a very common
word and it kind of scares some of us. So when we talk about a gang, it means a group
of dangerous criminals, dangerous criminals. If you're going out alone at the night and
you see a group of people who look a bit scary and you might see they are having some guns
in their hands, then you should be very careful, they could be a gang.
Let’s look at the next one. Crowd, a crowd of people just refers to a number of people
together. Number of people together. So this word is a collective noun but this can also
be also used as an adjective. So when you go to watch a movie, maybe you know the most
awaited movie. What is the condition of the theatre, it is crowded. It is very crowded.
So here the word crowded is actually being used as an adjective and not as a collective
noun. So you could also use it as an adjective, when you add ed, crowded.
Let’s look at the next word that we have. Throng, so the word throng has a similar meaning
like crowd but a throng can be of people and it can also be of animals. So you know you
could say that, he pushed his way out of the throng. So someone is moving out of the throng
and the throng can refer either to animals or to a group of people.
Let’s look at the next word that we have, that is a mob. So mob also has a similar meaning
like crowd and throng but there's a slight difference. So a mob of people are organized
together to create some trouble or they are intended in causing some trouble to the authorities
usually and a mob could be. It could be a like a mob of protestors who are demanding
something. Organized to cause trouble. You cannot use the word, mob and crowd interchangeably
because they have very different meaning. Crowd is a very positive word and they are
not organized for a common purpose. However mob has a negative connotation and they are
always organized together to cause trouble.
Let’s look at the next word, shoal or school, a school of fish. A school of fish. So this
refers to a group of fish or fishes rather. It can also be called as a school. So if you
see a lovely group of fishes in an aquarium, you wouldn't want to say, this is a lovely
group of fishes, you'd rather say, this is a lovely shoal, which itself means a group
of fishes.
Let’s look at the next word that we have, a set. So a set means a group of possibly
tools. This can be used to talk about a group of tools, like a toolbox. So you could say,
a set of rulers because you use rulers for some particular purposes and they are tools,
they are mathematical tools and you use them for calculations. So you'd say not a group
of rulers, you'd say a set of rulers.
The next word that we have is a stack. Have you ever seen a group of chairs one over the
other? Or a group of books, one over the other? That’s called a stack, usually a group of
books or chairs, one over the other. This is a collective noun but this collective noun
can be also be used as a verb. If I say that you should not stack your laptops, they might
get damaged. So this means that I'm using the word stack here as a verb, which means
not to put one over the other and that's true you must not ever stack your laptops.
The last word that we have is a stash. So stash is, a stash of cash. So a stash of cash
means a lot of hidden money. you could use this in a sentence by saying, they have stashed
their money in the Swiss bank, which means that their money is collected and hidden in
the Swiss bank.it can also be used for weapons because you don't want to keep weapons out
in the open. So it's always used, a stash of weapons or a stash of cash or money. So
this one is used for hidden items. Have you ever stashed something? Something that is
very secretive or personal to you. It can be used for regular things as well. Something
which is very personal. If you have ever stashed something, leave me in the comments, I'd love
to find out. Thank you for staying with me, I hope to see you soon, thank you, bye.