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A HERD OF COWS - A FLOCK OF CHICKENS
The English language has some wonderfully anthropomorphic collective
nouns for the various groups of animals.
We are all familiar with a Herd of cows, a Flock of chickens, a School
of fish and a Gaggle of geese.
Less widely known is a Pride of lions, a Murder of crows (as well as their cousins the rooks and ravens), an Exaltation of doves and, presumably because they look so wise, a Parliament of owls.
Now consider a group of Baboons. They are the loudest, most dangerous, most obnoxious, most viciously aggressive and least intelligent of all
primates. And what is the proper collective noun for a group of baboons?
Believe it or not. . . a Congress !
You can look it up!
It is now becoming perfectly clear. . .

Makes perfect since.

A murder of Ravens seems appropriate too, considering Ray Lewis and crew.

If a group of lions is a pride. Group off congressmen should be a shame

psijac wrote:If a group of lions is a pride. Group off congressmen should be a shame

Also, since "pro" and "con" are opposites...

The opposite of progress is...

Pawpaw wrote:Also, since "pro" and "con" are opposites...

The opposite of progress is...

Actually, although it ruins your joke, that is almost literally true. All of the "gress" words are related through their Latin roots. Here is a list of the "gress" words with their latin root meanings:

• progress: (verb) to go forward, advance; (noun) forward movement
• regress: (verb) to go back
• ingress: (noun) entrance
• egress: (verb) to go or come out; (noun) exit
• congress: (noun) the act of coming together and meeting
• retrogress: (verb) to move backward, revert

In all of them, the “gress” part indicates movement, and the prefix indicates the direction of the movement. Another related word is "aggression." The prefix "a" means "at," indicating movement at someone or something. I'm sure there are others. In any case, in light of the above, the act of moving forward is sort of the opposite of coming together, which implies lack of motion. In the end, I'm sure most of us would agree that things would be better if progress consisted of congressional retrogression to a more literal interpretation of the constitution; and for that to happen, leftists will have to egress politics and regress to where they came from, while we simultaneously have an ingress of conservatives into congress.

...but in turning his joke into an English lesson, you digress...

speedsix wrote:...but in turning his joke into an English lesson, you digress...