{"id":2661,"date":"2011-01-29T15:03:00","date_gmt":"2011-01-29T23:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/averagejoecyclist.com\/?p=2661"},"modified":"2019-03-26T13:18:50","modified_gmt":"2019-03-26T20:18:50","slug":"collective-noun-for-cars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/averagejoecyclist.com\/collective-noun-for-cars\/","title":{"rendered":"Can You Think of a Collective Noun for Cars?"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Collective Noun for Cars<\/h2>\n

Isn\u2019t it strange that we have no collective noun for cars? Especially given that traffic has become the defining motif<\/a> of modern society. After all, many people spend more time in traffic than they do eating meals with their families!<\/p>\n

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\u00a0<\/strong>Cyclists are often able to zip past traffic jams, but we are nonetheless heavily impacted by hordes of cars. For me, the vast number of cars on the roads is the single greatest thing that detracts from my cycling experiences<\/strong> \u2013 I would prefer snow, steep uphills, extreme heat or monsoon-like rainfall over heavy car traffic, any day.<\/p>\n

Cycling past dense gridlocked traffic the other day, I tried to think of a collective noun for cars. We have \u201cpeloton\u201d for bikes \u2013 what would be an appropriate collective noun for cars at rush hour?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I thought perhaps \u201ctraffic\u201d might be the appropriate collective noun. But in his book Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do<\/em>, Tom Vanderbilt explains that the word \u201ctraffic\u201d originally referred to trade and the movement of goods, and was a positive word. Then it came to also refer to the people who were moving goods. And as \u201ctraffic\u201d meant people moving things to trade, it all came to mean people moving vehicles in pursuit of commerce. Which is pretty much what it means today, since the worst traffic jams occur as millions of people try to get to work. In any event, \u201ctraffic\u201d means cars and<\/strong> people, so it cannot be the right collective noun for cars.<\/p>\n

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As \u201ctraffic\u201d isn\u2019t the right collective noun for cars, I tried to come up with a few possibilities:<\/p>\n