Oddly enough, that gathering of geese in flight is a wedge. When they aren't in formation, but still in flight, they are skein or a team. When flying close together, a plump. On the ground, a flock or gaggle and in water, just a gaggle.
Ducks in the water you ask. A paddlington.
Unless they are close together. Then they're a raft.
And coots? A floatila apparently. Guessing only when they are in water.
A quantity of yarn, thread, etc. put up together in an oblong shape, after it is taken from the reel. A skein of cotton yarn is formed by eighty turns of the thread around a fifty-four inch reel.
(figuratively) A web, a weave, a tangle.
(zoology) The membrane of a fish ovary.
(wagonmaking) A metallic strengthening band or thimble on the wooden arm of an axle.
(zoology, UK, dialect, collective) A group of wild fowl (e.g. geese, goslings) when they are in flight.
(sports) A winning streak.
(radio, television, dated) A series created by a web (major broadcasting network).
In my experience a skein is a specific type of wound wool. It's looped and then twisted and folded over. You can't knit from a skein, you have to reball it first.
I gave up editing wikipedia years ago. My edits would be swamped with reverts and snarky comments because the information didn't agree with intro textbooks. In at least one case it turns out an instructor was giving extra credit to students to "correct" information. The textbook they were using was deeply flawed of course. But there you are.
I remember reading that Wikipedia was just phase one of the project where draft articles were written. Phase two was a more formal project where experts would refine the draft articles and they would be peer reviewed. Unfortunately, production was slow and Wikipedia took off so the project was effectively abandoned after a few years. Too bad. What field were you writing in?
Neuroscience. I think the last straw was where I had a review article on a specialist topic rejected from a couple of fancy journals. Rather than rewrite it for a lower tier, I modified it for Wikipedia. It got insta-banned and I got scolded/black marked for plagiarism. It was truly a "but I am Pagliacci" moment. Nobody in the chat page believed it or seemed to want to listen.
Well you know the tenure treadmill. This was 15+ years ago so Wiki contributions weren't counted towards professional activity. It literally wasn't worth the effort given the other options. Cheers to you as well!
Thanks for that. My family immigrated from Scotland a billion years ago or so, and we were always told they spoke mostly Gaelic. When I look at the language map they were from the Gaelic speaking islands that I now know are part of the Goidelic language family. Scots is in the south and part of the Brittonic language family. I can see more reading ahead.
