I would always get excited when the lessons on group nouns for animals came along as an English teacher in Japan. My co-teacher and I would stand in front of the class taking turns listing our favorites.
“Gaggle of geese!”
“School of fish!”
“Pod of dolphins!”
“Pride of lions!”
“Parliament of owls!”
“Oh! That’s a good one!”
“I know!”
The students would sit there, chins in their hands, with the same faraway eyes they had for every lesson. Eventually, someone would raise their hand. “What if we just counted them and instead said the number. I saw five crows.”
“You have the opportunity to say ‘murder of crows’ and you’d rather count them?”
The students would nod enthusiastically. My co-teacher and I would look at each other incredulously. Even though we had more than enough evidence to predict this, we were always shocked to learn it. Every time.