Even our Baboons are prepping around here.

[Joe SA]

 

[jimLE]

dont mess with my banana's lol

 

[DrHenley]

That baboon is "preparing" to get a bad case of "scope-eye."

 

[Gazrok]

You know what a group of baboons is called right? (if not, look it up, it's funny, and pretty apt...)

 

[Joe SA]

You know what a group of baboons is called right? (if not, look it up, it's funny, and pretty apt...)

Very very clever[emoji1]

 

[DrHenley]

You know what a group of baboons is called right? (if not, look it up, it's funny, and pretty apt...)

Troop. Call me dense, but I don't get the joke

 

[Joe SA]

Troop. I don't get the joke

Like Army "Troops" training for war.

 

[Gazrok]

Technically, yes, but culturally, it's also called a "Congress".

Some claim this was actually an Internet mistake, but to be honest, the term for it has been in use since as early as at least 1893. Equally acceptable is a Tribe of baboons. But Congress is funnier.

 

[DrHenley]

Never heard that before. Must be an Email meme.

 

[jimLE]

None of the definitions for congress referred to baboons, apes, monkeys or primates. A "congress" can be a meeting or session of any group, but the e-mail makes it clear that this is a specific term for a gathering of baboons.Jan 2, 2012

 

[Joe SA]

The pun is even more relevant in our Afrikaans language, whe used the term "troepies" for the South African foot soldiers.

 

[DrHenley]

"Apparently someone just made it up, it has the ring of truthiness and so people like it. They do behave like the caricature of the baboons, but I think real baboons probably behave a lot better."
Orin Hargraves, president of the Dictionary Society of North America

 

[Gazrok]

The earliest record of the term use is in an 1893 newspaper article, so it predates the Internet email by quite a bit....

But yeah, culturally, the knowledge of it was from the email chain.

 

[DrHenley]

The earliest record of the term use is in an 1893 newspaper article, so it predates the Internet email by quite a bit....

But yeah, culturally, the knowledge of it was from the email chain.

That is how things get into the language. People start using a term, other people pick up on it, and eventually it's part of the lexicon. But it has to reach some critical mass first before the lexicographers will accept it. They haven't accepted this one...yet...

That newspaper headline "A Congress of Baboons" in the 16 November 1893, Kansas City (MO) Star, pg. 2, col. 2 didn't appear to cause everyone to start calling a group of baboons a "Congress." Mainly because the article wasn't about baboons. The book Home Life on an Ostrich Farm by Annie Martin, 1891, however, did refer to a group of baboons as a "parliament." But it didn't change the lexicon either. (Here is the book BTW)
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/42767/42767-h/42767-h.htm

If enough people pick up the term, and start using it, it may be considered an official name for a group of baboons eventually, and the lexicographers will have to accept it!

 

[psalm 7]

I had to go check and see if my enfield was still here when I looked at the picture .
Thought that bloody creature had stolen my rifle .