this post was submitted on 07 Feb 2024
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Yes, it’s real. The post was made today on the official Merriam-Webster instagram account. Both terms are used. Destruction is just more modern.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/a-drudge-of-lexicographers-presents-collective-nouns
"Used"
"more modern" = people are saying it on reddit
That is a load-bearing "(no explanation necessary)".
I'd love to see an explanation. How did we get from 'clowder' to 'destruction'? Gaining a syllable and losing alliteration is not a typical linguistic evolution. Who's actually using this term?
The closest I've seen actual examples of is a tongue-in-cheek 'catastrophe of cats', and that never went mainstream as far as I'm aware.