>>shoal: 1. a shallow place, an underwater sandbank, 2. shoals hidden dangers or difficulties (Oxford American Dictionary)
>
>This is why I say that people "out there" are really only having some fun with the English language when it comes to "nouns" to refer to collections of living things.
>Seems to me that **some** such things have been around for eons and accepted (e.g. a pride of lions) but I really think that things like "a murder of crows" or "a storm of [I forget what it was]" and tens of other similar ones are in the same genre as newspaper headline writers of today, trying to link words to 'actions'. Silliness but harmless (I hope).

I think he meant "school", not "shoal".

It does seem strange to have so many different words for the same concept, i.e.: "a collection of living beings". Why should "school" be used for fish, but not for ducks or elephants???