> So you start out by saying people never say "murder of crows", yet it's very important for you that they stop?
People never say "murder of crows" etc. when they are actually talking about groups of crows. But they do say "did you know that a group of crows is called a 'murder'? Haha" or "Question 3: What is the collective noun for a group of crows?"
So the OCD is even worse than I feared. He is against other people even _thinking_ that a third set of people might be saying "murder of crows". That's pretty meta.
What would you call it when you have so strong feelings about what people you will never meet or even interact with think about a marginal feature of English? It certainly doesn't seem very sane.
And it's not even that they are wrong, "murder of crows" is definitely correct English. Not just very commonly used.
By the way, asking crow researchers what terms they use is just silly, they are the least likely to be using it, it's not a technical term, it's a quaint old expression - everyone knows that.
People never say "murder of crows" etc. when they are actually talking about groups of crows. But they do say "did you know that a group of crows is called a 'murder'? Haha" or "Question 3: What is the collective noun for a group of crows?"
Hope that makes sense!