In search of a Collective Noun
By Sal Balharrie
A full moon lights up Point Lonsdale Lighthouse on the Bellarine Peninsula
Image by patrickguerrisi
Now, if you happen to love the English language such as I, you too will have a couple of decorative Collective nouns hanging about your very person. Wonders such as:
A bike of bees; A rhumba of rattlesnakes;
A glaring of cats; A nest of rumours; A gang of elk; An obstinance of buffalo.
And what about a group; a number; a quantity of lighthouses? There are few places that boast such a need, however on this point the Bellarine Peninsula is a rather special place with Queenscliff’s navigational lighthouses including the White Low Light, the Black High Light, the Hume Tower, the Murray Tower and the Queenscliff Harbour Tower; add to this the rather iconic Point Lonsdale Light (known as a destination light house) - and we’re talking six!
Recently the clever people at the Queenscliffe Maritime Museum in conjunction with the Queenscliff Literature Festival received over 600 suggestions in response to a rather unusual competition. The aim? To find a word to describe a group of lighthouses. In other words the competition sought to find an official collective noun, one the Museum can use across signage and publications.
The competition aimed to find a word that would describe the sensation a seafarer might experience on sighting the first lighthouse and then on coming into Port Phillip from Bass Strait. The judges hoped to find a word that might evoke a sense of arrival, via the sea, from a place of surging waters, rocky coasts and wind, to a place of relative calm and safety.
A phallaus; A dazzle; a relief; A sparkle; A twist; A rise; A loom; A connection;
A welcome; A shine; A chandelier; A passage; A vigil; A haven.
And the Winner?
A relief of Lighthouses
From Crossing Bass Strait or heading to and from Eden I have experienced a sense of relief in sighting a lighthouse. Whether at night or in broad daylight, that building on the hill, spotted from miles out, that man-made structure of stone, signals safety, that navigational choices have paid off and that the sea, for the moment, has been conquered, ‘we will be alright’ - so yes, a lighthouse is a relief.
For seafarers of the 18th and 19th century, sailing from Europe to Australia nothing would have granted a greater sense of relief than the first sighting of Cape Bruny Lighthouse and then for those heading north, Macquarie Lightstation - Australia’s first lighthouse.
I think the words of John Cook, Tasmania’s last Lighthouse keeper, bring home the concept of relief rather beautifully…
“Every light has a different character, the navigator picks up this character and looks at the chart and says ‘ I know where I am now’”
So yes, I’m rather happy with A Relief of Lighthouses.
What about you?