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NOUNS
➢ ALL TYPES

➢ Common Nouns
A common noun is the generic name for a person, place, or thing in a class or group. Unlike proper
nouns, a common noun is not capitalized unless it either begins a sentence or appears in a
title. Common nouns can be concrete (perceptible to the senses), abstract (involving general ideas or
qualities), or collective (referring to a group or collection).
All nouns can be classified as either common or proper. All nouns name something, but proper nouns
name them specifically. Common nouns do not

Examples :
.
They say that diamonds are a girl’s best friend.
If you want to be my best friend, the Blue Moon Diamond would be a great gift idea.

Usually, it will be quite obvious if a specific person, place, or thing is being named.
While cats are social animals, some may seem like solitary creatures

Examples :
.
A cat may scratch you if it is teased too much.
Seriously, you should watch yourself around Fluffy.
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Ray likes to hike in the mountains.

Ray has climbed Mount Everest twice.
A girl rang the doorbell this afternoon while you were out.
Gigi rang the doorbell this afternoon while you were out.

Distinguishing between common nouns and proper nouns seems easy, so why do we really
need to know the difference between them? The answer to that question is this: to assign capital letters
correctly.

✓ Common Nouns Are Lowercased

A frequent spelling error people make is to capitalize common nouns unnecessarily. Some words,
like president, seem to beg for a capital letter because instinctively we want to emphasize their
importance. But even this lofty title is a common noun if it does not name something or someone specific
(in this case, a specific president).

Examples :

wrong The United States has had four Presidents this century.
rigth The United States has had four presidents this century.
wrong George Washington was the first President of the United States.
rigth George Washington was the first president of the United States.
wrong In 1789, the tenure of president George Washington began.
rigth In 1789, the tenure of President George Washington began.

In the penultimate example, the fact that George Washington is named at the beginning of the
sentence may tempt you to capitalize president afterward, but you must resist this temptation. Here,
George Washington is referred to as the first president of the United States—that is, the first in a number
of presidents of the United States. Thus, in that example, president is a common noun.

This principle applies to every common noun, no matter how monumental its significance. Even
if your noun represents the most momentous event the universe has seen, it must be named specifically to
be proper and to don its capitals.

Examples :

wrong Hubble and Einstein contributed to the theory of the Cosmological Expansion of the Universe .
rigth Hubble and Einstein contributed to the theory of the cosmological expansion of the universe .
rigth The Big Bang is a theory regarding the cosmological expansion of the universe.
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➢ Proper Nouns

A proper noun is a specific name for a particular person, place, or thing. Proper nouns are
always capitalized in English, no matter where they fall in a sentence. Because they endow nouns with a
specific name, they are also sometimes called proper names.

Every noun can be classified as either common or proper. A common noun is the generic name for
one item in a class or group.
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Examples :

palace ; girl ; book

A proper noun, on the other hand, names a noun precisely.

Examples :

Buckingham Palace ; Cynthia ; War and Peace

The distinction between common and proper nouns is usually quite easy to make, but it can
occasionally be more difficult to intuit. When we speak, it makes no difference whether a noun is proper or
common because it does not impact syntax. When we write, however, we need to know which nouns are
proper because we need to know where to place capital letters.

➢ How Prevent Capital Wrong Applications

➢ Mom or mom? Nouns Indicating a Family Relationship

The nouns we use to talk about our families cause a lot of trouble, when you use a word like mom,
dad, or aunt, capitalize it only if the word is being used exactly as you would a name, as if you were
addressing the person directly. If the word is not being used as a name, it is not capitalized—although that
has nothing to do with the word’s importance.

Examples :

Please ask Mom if she would like steak for dinner.

Is your mom coming over for dinner?

Even if the speaker of the last sentence is acquainted with your mom and is thinking of that mom
specifically, mom is not being used as a proper name, so it is not capitalized.

wrong Adam asked his Uncle if he could stay for dinner.

rigth Adam asked his uncle if he could stay for dinner.

➢ Are Directions Capitalized?

The directions of the compass are not capitalized unless they are used as part of the proper name of a

region

Examples :

The trail continued west all the way to the coastline.

What time is it on the West Coast?
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Capitalizing Seasons
Because we capitalize the days of the week and the months of the year, people
sometimes capitalize the seasons spring, summer, fall (or autumn), and winter by extension. However,
they should only be capitalized when they are used as a part of a proper name.

wrong Will you be visiting New York in the Spring?

rigth Will you be visiting New York in the spring?
rigth I am thinking of attending the Spring Social this year.

➢ Jobs and Other Titles

It is just plain hard to resist capitalizing job titles, but once again, unless they are used in the act
of naming someone, do not capitalize them

Examples :
Please allow me to introduce you to our managing director, Bob Smith.
Today Julie had an interview with Managing Director Bob Smith.

No matter how important you deem the job a person does, resist the urge to capitalize his or her
title if it does not name him or her.

Examples :

The next time I visit Rome, I’m going to drop in on the pope.
I can’t wait to meet Pope Francis when I am in Rome.

➢ Should Brand Names Be Capitalized?

When brand names come into common use to describe a whole class of items, it is easy to forget to
capitalize them. Brand names, however, are proper names.

Examples :

He asked his mother to hand him a tissue.

Could you pass me the Kleenex?
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➢ Collective Noun

A collective noun is a word or phrase that refers to a group of people or things as one entity. One
common error that arises from using collective nouns is subject-verb disagreement: writers often become
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confused about whether to treat a collective noun as singular or plural. While collective nouns are mostly
treated as singular, there are exceptions.
This mental image of “multiple” sometimes causes us to choose the wrong verb tense with a collective
noun.

wrong The choir are singing to a sold-out hall for the third time in a row. They are performing A German
Requiem by Brahms tonight.

rigth The choir is singing to a sold-out hall for the third time in a row. It is performing A German
Requiem by Brahms Tonight.

From the example above, we can see that the choir, though composed of many people, is a
singular unit. One can assume that they will perform the Brahms requiem as one.

➢ Are Collective Nouns Singular or Plural?

The team is or are? The audience is or are? There are times when we use collective nouns that would
normally require a singular verb, but because of the context in which they are used, a plural verb fits
better. This happens when members of the group stop acting as a cohesive unit and begin acting as
individuals.

Example :Today, the committee decides the fate of John’s proposal.

. In this example, the collective noun “committee” is a group that has a unified purpose today: deciding
the fate of John’s proposal.

Example : John’s proposal is so unusual that the committee are scratching their heads and furtively
glancing at each other in surprise.

In this example, the committee are acting as individuals; it is extremely unlikely that they are
scratching their heads and glancing at each other in unison, like an odd game of Simon Says. Therefore,
the committee now gets the plural verb “are.”
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➢ Compound Nouns

Compound nouns are a constant, everyday part of speaking and writing in English. In fact, they’re so
ubiquitous in English that you might not even realize that some of the terms you use every day are
compound nouns. Software, sunrise, and backpack are but three examples.

➢ How to make a compound noun

Every compound noun is two or more words that come together to form a noun. These separate
words don’t necessarily have to be nouns themselves; all they have to do is communicate a specific
person, place, idea, or thing. A compound noun can be a common noun (fish sticks), a proper
noun (Pizza Hut), or an abstract noun (lovesickness).

➢ Forming compound nouns

There are a few different ways to form a compound noun. Sometimes, two words are
simply smashed together. These are known as closed compound nouns, and examples include:

Playground ; windshield ; keyboard

Other compound nouns are neatly tied together with a hyphen. These are called hyphenated
compound nouns, and examples include:

father-in-law ; X-ray ; merry-go-round

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➢ Concrete Nouns vs. Abstract Nouns

➢ What Is a Concrete Noun?

A concrete noun is a noun that can be identified through one of the five senses (taste, touch, sight,
hearing, or smell). Consider the examples below:

Ex: Would someone please answer the phone ?

In the sentence above, the noun phone is a concrete noun: you can touch it, see it, hear it, and
maybe even smell it or taste it.

Ex: What is that noise ?

Even though noise can’t be touched—and the noise may even be coming from several places—
you can hear the noise, so it’s a concrete noun.

Ex: After his retirement, Mr. Bond pursued his dream of photographing rainbows.
Rainbows is a concrete noun: they can be seen. Mr. Bond is also a concrete noun,
but dream and retirement are not. These nouns are considered abstract nouns. We’ll discuss abstract
nouns in more detail below.

➢ What Is an Abstract Noun?

An abstract noun is a noun that cannot be perceived using one of the five senses ( taste, touch,
sight, hearing, smelling). Look at the examples below:

Ex: We can’t imagine the courage it took to do that.

Courage is an abstract noun because it cannot be seen, heard, tasted, touched, or smelled.

Below are two more examples of abstract nouns in context.

Exs: Early paleontologists assumed that the small brains of some dinosaurs indicated stupidity of
the species.
Higher education is strongly recommended.
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➢ Countable and uncountable nouns

It's important to distinguish between countable and uncountable nouns in English because their usage
is different in regards to both determiners and verbs.

➢ Countable nouns
Countable nouns are for things we can count using numbers. They have a singular and a plural form.
The singular form can use the determiner "a" or "an". If you want to ask about the quantity of a countable
noun, you ask "How many?" combined with the plural countable noun.
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Singular Plural

one dog two dogs

one horse two horses

one man two men

one idea two ideas

one shop two shops

Examples
• She has three dogs. • I would like two books please.
• I own a house. • How many friends do you have?

➢ Uncountable nouns
Uncountable nouns are for the things that we cannot count with numbers. They may be the names for
abstract ideas or qualities or for physical objects that are too small or too amorphous to be counted
(liquids, powders, gases, etc.). Uncountable nouns are used with a singular verb. They usually do not
have a plural form.

Examples
• tea • beauty
• sugar • anger
• water • fear
• air • love
• rice • money
• knowledge • research
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• safety • evidence

We cannot use a/an with these nouns. To express a quantity of an uncountable noun, use a word
or expression like some, a lot of, much, a bit of, a great deal of , or else use an exact measurement
like a cup of, a bag of, 1kg of, 1L of, a handful of, a pinch of, an hour of, a day of. If you want to ask
about the quantity of an uncountable noun, you ask "How much?"

Examples

• There has been a lot of research into the causes of this disease.
• He gave me a great deal of advice before my interview.
• Can you give me some information about uncountable nouns?
• He did not have much sugar left.
• Measure 1 cup of water, 300g of flour, and 1 teaspoon of salt.
• How much rice do you want?

➢ Tricky spots
Some nouns are countable in other languages but uncountable in English. They must follow the rules
for uncountable nouns. The most common ones are:

accommodation, advice, baggage, behavior, bread, furniture, information, luggage, news,

progress, traffic, travel, trouble, weather, work

Examples
• I would like to give you some advice. • This looks like a lot of trouble to me.
• How much bread should I bring? • We did an hour of work yesterday.
• I didn't make much progress today.

Be careful with the noun hair which is normally uncountable in English, so it is not used in the
plural. It can be countable only when referring to individual hairs.

Examples

• She has long blond hair.

• The child's hair was curly.
• I washed my hair yesterday.
• My father is getting a few grey hairs now. (refers to individual hairs)
• I found a hair in my soup! (refers to a single strand of hair)
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