Nominations for a Collective Noun for "Drones"

(Kenneth Anderson)

Drones, that is, as in Predator drones and targeted killing.  Although my editor is likely to kill the idea, I am considering as a title for something on targeted killing, drone warfare, and covert action, "A [?] of Drones."  Where the bracket should be a newly minted collective noun — i.e., such collective nouns as a murder of crows, a pride of lions, a gaggle of geese, etc.  Collective nouns, especially where one is making one up for the first time, are harder than they look.  They have to be a noun that is unusual enough that it will signal to a reasonably alert reader that it is a noun being used in its collective sense, and evocative — often ironic and ideally droll — enough to signal something about the nature of the thing.  Here is an excellent website with bunches of them.  But these are apparently reasonably widely accepted collective nouns — here's a set of collective nouns that might be - proposed neologisms.  So, what should it be for drones?  I thought about a "murmuration," and perhaps that is best, but it is taken by swallows or some such bird.  Perhaps a "consternation"?  Too obscure?  Suggestions, please.






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Published on November 14, 2011 19:44
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