Have Ben and Andrew been laughing at us this whole time?

I seriously believe that Ben and Andrew were the one that brought the word fluther and its definition to the dictionary.

So if “fluther” means “a school of fish” then “fluthered” means “to become a school of fish”. Easy.

I don’t believe the internet. I believe in my super deduction skill!

I did a Web search for collective nouns. Most of these terms are seldom used, but some are well known like pride of lions and and school of fish. The site lists smack and brood for jellyfish, but not fluther. I kind of like fluther.

I honestly never heard the word before I found this site.

According to Ngram, the word “Fluther” has been used to describe a school of jelly fish in English language literature since 1823.

I’d never heard of it either but in the Oxford Dictionaries site it is defined as a collective noun but when I looked, it is not found in the main dictionary – I even looked up the subscription version in my library. This is weird.

@Espiritus_Corvus , I don’t see any reference to jellyfish in your link.

I wonder what the cause was for the spike in usage around 1990. Was that when this site was created?

The more I think about the word, the more it sounds like something Waffle House could do to my hash browns.

Smothered, covered, fluthered…

I do remember the word fluther mentioned in various conversations about collective nouns many years ago, along with gaggle and a few other words of relatively rare usage.

I still think this is hilarious:

“In Dublinese, to achieve a state of inebriation that renders one frivolous, silly and dangerously prone to saying things like, ‘I love you man’ and ‘You’re me besht mate, seriously; whaddaya fuckin’ laffin’ at? Ye prick. I never liked you anyway…’
Jaysus, I had 15 rum and blacks, I was bleedin’ fluthered.”

I’m with you @LostInParadise. I saw the word “fluther,” but no connection to jellyfish in either of his links.

Recently when I had a techie guy make some changes to my computer he saw my fluther bookmark and pronounced it flu-ther. hahaha

like, “flue”? How odd. I guess some people never pick up on the nuances of the English words. I immediately associated it with “flutter.”

^ Yeah, like flu. haha

Laughing at us? How many hours would you guess you have personally put in here?

“Fluther”, pronounced ”flue-ther” means one who plays the flute.

It’s pronounced ”fluh- ther” when referring to the aforementioned group of jellies jellyfish.

Laughing at you guys @stanleybmanly ? Lots and lots!! :D

Maybe they purposely mispronounced some other word?