Naomi gave us a reference to A Conspiracy of Ravens
<http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1851244093/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp34&creative450&creativeASIN51244093&linkCode=as2&tag=httpthinklang-21&linkId=JOLU3YQGWJWTV7PN>.
One of the more famous collective nouns is "An Exaltation of Larks
<http://www.amazon.com/An-Exaltation-Larks-Ultimate-Edition/dp/0140170960>."
This gives me an opportunity to emphasize that the Hebrew het *usually*
appears in English as a W via Germanic and *sometimes* as an X (KS) via
classical Greek and Latin. Words with het = H or CH, such as Haifa and
Chanuka, are really *rare*.
When the Romans were in Israel, the het had a KS or X-sound. The Romans
watched the flight of birds, especially larks, to decide when an auspicious
(literally, bird-watching in Latin) occasion should occur.
The Hebrew word for "decide" is ×××××× with the root het-lamed-tet.
Giving
the het its Roman-era X-sound produces the XLT in eXaLTation.
For a list of het-W parallels, see
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2033458/Hebrew/het_W_parallels.docx
You can see additional Hebrew het = Greek/Latin X = English W parallels at
http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/ABOUT-WORDS/2003-05/1053855796
Ciao, Izzy
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