A What Of Dwaves? Sci-Fi And Fantasy Collective Nouns

What do you call a group of Daleks? Or Cylons? Or Firefly fans? It’s a crime there are no official collective nouns for them so we asked you to create some

As any pub quizzer knows, there are some truly bizarre genuine collective nouns out there: a bellowing of bullfinches, a parliament of owls, an aurora of polar bears, a labour of moles, the list goes on. But when someone on our Twitter feed last week pondered, “What do you call a group of Dwarves?” that set us wondering – why don’t SF and fantasy races and groups have their own collective nouns? So we put out a request on our Facebook page, and had an amazing response (and a few emails too – what are you afraid of our Facebook page? We’re very friendly!). Here are some of our favourites, but feel free to add more in the comments section:

A shortage of Dwarves (Dave Repoman Rowson)

A clank of Cybermen (Rad Kerriga)

A Glittering of (sh*t) vampires (Steve R Mainwaring)

A stench of zombies (Simon Mills)

A mince of Elves (Simon Mills)

A carpet of Wookies (Steve R Mainwaring)

A massacre of red shirts (Steve Cooper)

A cancellation of Browncoats (Telekinetic Firetruck)

An excretion of gungans (Stephen Elsden)

A kitchen showroom of toasters (Peter Watkinson)

A pepper of Daleks (Rob Hickling)

A cannon of Whovians (Ian Hayles)

An ego of wizards (Simon Mills)

An imagination of SFX readers (Damien Kelly)

A bemusment of Lost fans (Dean Smith)

An udder of Marvel superhero movies (Jayne Greenacre)

A sound of Silence (Simon Garfunkel*)

(* We think this may be a pseudonym)

Dave is a TV and film journalist who specializes in the science fiction and fantasy genres. He's written books about film posters and post-apocalypses, alongside writing for SFX Magazine for many years.