Of mayflies and earwigs

So, what is the collective noun for a mass of mayflies - or daddy-long-legs, if you prefer? Or as Littlest quite reasonably speculated, is there even one?

Personally, I like clatter - a clatter of mayflies - as, I bet if you had a microphone and could amplify the sound of eight impossibly gangly legs on the ceiling, the sound produced would indeed be a clattering one. Littlest disagreed. She thought a cloud, or a shoal might be better - the way they drift up and down between floor and ceiling reminded her of jelly-fish. We wondered about troupe as they do appear to be engaged in a (masochistic) dance around the light bulb. But could a butterfly's kiss of mayflies be the best, referring to the light touch of fine thread, as spindly leg brushes your skin?

And as for earwigs, I favour explosion since this both describes what happens when you expose where they are hiding and observe them magically multiply and squirm off in all directions and also the seemingly exponential growth in their population this year; I'm hoping it's seasonal and that they'll all be gone soon. Littlest thought a vomit of earwigs too disgusting in the image it conjured up and couldn't get her tongue or head sufficiently round the word revolting to make a noun out of it; revoltingableness was her best effort!

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Colour, Delacroix, flochetage and why don't we all have a go at inventing words

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Walking The Dog

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