When my old friend Doug came over from Australia to see the sights in America, including the inside of my fridge where the beer is kept, he was much taken with the abundance of squirrels in the area.

As he had never seen such a thing, he coined a term for the multiple squirrels that congregated on the lawn -- a thanat of squirrels. Why he chose "thanat" for squirrel groupings I can't really say, but possibly he derived it from the Greek word thanatos, meaning death.

While this doesn't make much sense at first blush, it might seem more fitting if you were a plump nut or acorn and a hungry squirrel were approaching -- and no offense to you plump nuts; I'm a bit pudgy myself.

On other hand, my mate Doug may have just made up thanat after a few drinks. Still, his name for a squirrel congregation certainly was in the long tradition of fancy animal-group monikers, such as a pride of lions -- a piece of big-cat egotism that always gives the hyenas a laugh (a cackle of hyenas, by the way.)

Lists of animal group names are available on the Web and they make great reading if you happen to have some spare time on your hands, say, on death row waiting to be executed, or in a newspaper waiting for the industry to be executed.

Pretty much every animal has a group name except apparently groundhogs, which is a shocking omission that I hereby rectify by suggesting a prognostication of groundhogs in honor of the famous meteorologist Punxsutawney Phil.

Some of my favorite animal group names are a murder of crows (surely a homicide of crows, those crows haven't been convicted yet) and a business of ferrets (what business ferrets engage in is anyone's guess, but I'm thinking telemarketing).

Yes, some of these names are doozies and, until I read them again, I did not realize that squirrels already had a group name -- a scurry or a dray of squirrels.

I can understand scurry -- it is totally descriptive -- but dray? A dray is a low, sturdy cart with detachable sides. You couldn't haul a load of squirrels in a dray; they'd be over the top or through the detachable sides in no time.

So, as it turns out, thanat is free to be applied to other groupings and I think it is past time to use colorfully descriptive names for human beings who deserve them more. Really, what have these animals done that we have to call them names? Because giraffes are tall, we have to call them a tower of giraffes? Oh, yeah, make fun of giraffes, just because they stick their necks out.

It is not fair. Take for example, the name for bears in a group -- a sleuth or sloth of bears. That name is wasted on the bears. It would be better if "sleuth" were applied to groups of detectives and "sloth" to employees of certain state agencies.

Then there's a bloat of hippopotamuses, which is really quite insulting to full-figured hippopotami, who can look quite nice if they put flowers in their ears and become (old joke alert) hippypotamuses. Much better, I think, to apply bloat to Americans in general.

As for those of you who are more petite and do not deserve to be counted in the bloat, please do not feel left out. There are words enough to describe your group classification. A misery of dieters. A sweat of joggers. A stretch of yoga enthusiasts.

(You can thank your lucky stars that among the depression of journalists, there is one still thinking of such important topics.)

Where we Americans are most lacking is in names for our political groupings. We live in an era when many conservatives are un-conservative and many liberals are illiberal and at least these strange political groups should have names of their own. I suggest a grumble of conservatives and an equivocation of liberals.

These groupings may also find a home in the major political parties, where one can readily find a naysaying of Republicans and a spending of Democrats.

The tea party folks also deserve a name, something like a fury of tea party-goers, and the Birthers likewise -- a delusion of birth-certificate doubters. I tell you, more strange birds live in this world than came off Noah's ark two by two.

But what to do about "thanat"? I have saved it until last: A thanat of congressional lobbyists. They are squirrelly in their ways and they are death to meaningful reform. They count their nuts and they leave the rest of us up a tree. Why, we need a business of ferrets to sort them out.

Jack Kelly and Reg Henry spar on the topics of the day exclusively at PG+, a members-only web site of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.