Let’s Talk About Grammar

Jurong Secondary School

Secondary 1 Express

Grammar Package 4
Nouns

Name: _________________________ ( ) Class: __________

Date: __________
Nouns are the names of people, animals, places, titles, things or abstract qualities.

1
 Types of Nouns

I. Proper Nouns
Proper nouns are specific names for people, animals, places, titles or things. Proper nouns
begin with capital letters.

The table below shows some proper nouns.

Person Mr Ramasamy, Mrs Lim, Michelangelo

Place Germany, France, Kuala Lumpur
Thing Google, Yahoo, Picasa
Title Datuk, Her Excellency, His Highness

II. Common Nouns

Common nouns are general names for people, animals, places or things.

Examples: boy, chair, cliff, hair, lion

Note:

 Common nouns can be divided into concrete nouns and abstract nouns.
 Common nouns can be countable or uncountable.

a) Concrete nouns are things that can be seen or touched.

Examples: box, cat, river

b) Abstract nouns are non-concrete things or specific personal qualities.

Examples: music, nature, strength, endurance

III. Countable and Uncountable Nouns

a) Countable Nouns
Countable nouns are nouns that can be counted. They have plural forms.

2
 Countable Nouns
They can be singular. (= one) They can be plural. (= two or more)

Singular countable nouns require the Plural countable nouns require the definite
indefinite article a or an or the definite article the or no article at all.
article the.

Examples: Examples:
a car, the car the cars, cars
an umbrella, the umbrella the umbrella, umbrellas
an envelope, the envelope the envelope, envelopes

Note:

 Some abstract nouns such as development, difficulty, idea, misery and skill are
countable in certain contexts. Such nouns can be singular or plural.

Examples: The new developments in the takeover battle were closely monitored.
Kate encountered many difficulties in her work.
He came up with many new ideas for the project.

 Some nouns such as arrears, arts (the humanities), clothes, condolences,

congratulations, goods, police, riches and thanks are always plural.

Examples: Our clothes were stained and torn after we crawled through the bushes.
His sincere congratulations were much appreciated by the couple.
The police were quick to apprehend the thief who attacked the old lady.

b) Uncountable Nouns
Uncountable nouns are nouns that cannot be counted. Some examples of uncountable
nouns are flour, ice, milk, sand and water.

Note:

 Abstract nouns such as beauty, cowardice, despair, honesty, ignorance, intelligence,

sadness and wealth cannot be counted. Such nouns are taken as singular.

 Nouns such as clothing, equipment, furniture, information, machinery and scenery are
taken as uncountable and hence have no plural form.

 Do not use the indefinite articles a or an with uncountable nouns. Instead, use the
definite article the to refer to a specific object.

 To show quantity, we can use the expressions “a … of”, “two … of” before uncountable
nouns.

3
 Uncountable Countable (singular) Countable (plural)
water a glass of water two glasses of water
music a piece of music five pieces of music
bread a slice of bread three slices of bread

 Some nouns can be both countable and uncountable, depending on the context.

Uncountable Countable
She has long and brown hair. He found two grey hairs on his head.
(= the hair on her head) (= two strands of hair)

I need some paper to do some calculations. I am going out to buy a paper/ the papers at
(= material for writing on) the convenience store.
(= a newspaper)

Life is full of difficulties. She had a difficult life.

(= life in general) (= her life in particular)

I love coffee very much. May I have two coffees?

(= coffee in general) (= two cups of coffee)

I am afraid you cannot go in because there You can stay in my house tonight because
is no room. there is a spare room.
(= space) (= a room in the house)

There is fruit in the basket. There are three fruits in the basket,
(= fruit in general) including an apple, a guava and a cherry.
(= different types of fruits)

Exercise 1

Instructions:
Circle the correct answers in the sets of boxes to complete the sentences.

1 I am afraid that your hair _____ too long. You is are

need to have it cut before you go to school.

2 Tommy brought a lot of _____ for his summer luggage luggages

exchange programme in New York.

3 Dad looked out of the window. It was sunny and weather day
cool. He yelled, “It is a nice _____!”

4 Every morning, I buy a _____ from the bakery bread loaf of bread
near my house

4
5 On orientation day, a senior student gave me a advice advices
piece of _____ about stress management.

6 I seldom buy _____ now because I can read the paper the papers
news online.

7 The physically handicapped candidates are special room a special room

allowed to go into _____ to take the listening
examination.

8 Joanne is intelligent. Finding a _____ will be a work job

piece of cake for her.

Exercise 2

Instructions:
Some of the words/ phrases in the sentences are incorrect. Circle them and write the
correct words/ phrases in the boxes provided. If there is no mistake, put a tick (  ) in the
box.

E.g. I bought a shorts over the weekend. a pair of shorts

1 My mum loves a furniture in this shop because she thinks that it the
is well-made.

2 They need a new scissors for the Visual Arts Project. a new pair of
scissors

3 Tina loves strawberry. Her mum is making a bottle of strawberry 

jam for her.

4 I have no work on Saturday. Let us have a gathering. 

5 I like your pant. Where did you buy it? pants

6 My family went fishing last week but we did not catch many fish
fishes.

7 There is hair in my soup! Can I have another bowl of soup, 

please?

8 Mr Teoh is married and has four childs. children

5
IV. Collective Nouns
Collective nouns are used for groups of people, animals or things of the same kind. They
can function as general reference terms.

a) Some collective nouns that are used for people are audience, crew, family, team,
government and public.

Examples: The large-scale production attracted an audience of over a hundred.

A family has lived in this area for over fifty years.
The public was shocked when the murders happened.

b) Some collective nouns are used to refer to specific groups of people, animals or things.
They are singular countable nouns.

Collective Noun for Collective Noun for Collective Noun for

Groups of People
an anvil of blacksmiths
a company of soldiers
a den of thieves
a flock of tourists
a troupe of performers
Groups of Animals
a herd of cattle/ elephants
a gaggle of geese
a school of whales
a swarm of bees
a tribe of monkeys
Groups of Things
a bunch of keys
a cluster of stars
a clutch of eggs
a pack of cards
a stand of trees

Please refer to the Appendix for more collective nouns.

Note:

a) The verb following the collective noun can be either singular or plural depending on the
intended meaning.

Examples:
The class is voting for its representative. (The class is voting as a body.)
The class are not in the room right now. (The individual students are not inside the
room.)

V. Pair Nouns
Pair nouns are things that come in pairs or consist of identical parts such as glasses,
scissors, trousers, shorts, jeans, tongs, pyjamas and tweezers.

Pair nouns are usually taken as plural and a plural verb has to be used.

Examples: My glasses need changing.

These scissors are extremely sharp.
My trousers are torn.

6
Note:

b) When pair of comes before the pair noun, it has to be used with a singular verb.

Examples: My new pair of glasses costs a lot of money.

John’s pair of pants was a present from his parents.
This pair of scissors is suitable for trimming hair.

VI. Gerunds
Also known as verbal nouns, gerunds are formed from verbs. They end with ‘ ing’ and look
like present participles but function as nouns.

A gerund is used:

a) as the subject of a sentence

Examples: Smoking is harming to health.

Swimming keeps you physically fit.

b) after certain verbs as the object (or part of the object) of the sentence

Examples: I enjoy travelling to different countries.

You should avoid using contractions in formal writing.

Some common verbs re normally followed by a gerund:

admit dislike (can’t) help practise

avoid enjoy involve resist
consider escape keep risk
delay fancy mind (can’t) stand
deny finish postpone suggest

c) after prepositions

Examples:
Wilson is good at playing basketball and Carmen is interested in playing the piano.
The Tan family is thinking about migrating to another country.
I look forward to hearing from you.
I am used to travelling to school by bus.
I prefer hiking to swimming.

7
Possessive Forms of Nouns
The possessive form of nouns is used to show ownership. We use the apostrophe (‘) to
make the possessive form.

a) For singular nouns, we add the apostrophe (‘) + s.

Example: My neighbour’s child is very good at Mathematics.

b) For plural nouns ending with ‘s’, we add the apostrophe (‘).

Example: A flood has destroyed all the farmers’ crops.

c) For plural nouns that do not end with ‘s’, we add the apostrophe (‘) + s.

Example: The children’s concert was a lot of fun for all concerned.

d) For names ending with ‘s’, we use the apostrophe (‘) + s.

Example: Charles’s rare collection of gems was practically priceless.

e) For two nouns that are linked together, for example, names of people, shops or
organisations, the possessive form is indicated only for the second noun or name.

Example: She has already bought tickets for Taylor and Thomson’ s concert.

f) Sometimes, we can omit the second noun when using the possessive form.

Example: I am going to the barber’s.

Plural Forms of Nouns

I. Regular Plural Nouns

Regular plural nouns refer to nouns that form their plural by adding a suffix.

a) Adding ‘s’

Singular Plural
ant ants
dam dams
eagle eagles

b) Adding ‘es’

Singular Plural
bus buses
wish wishes
glass glasses

8
Note:

 Some words can take either ‘s’ or ‘es’ to make their plural forms.

Singular Plural
buffalo buffalos / buffaloes
flamingo flamingos / flamingoes
mango mangos / mangoes
mosquito mosquitos / mosquitoes
zero zeros / zeroes

c) Changing the end letter ‘y’ to ‘ies’

Singular Plural
assembly assemblies
baby babies
eulogy eulogies

II. Irregular Plural Nouns

Irregular plural nouns are plural nouns that are different in form from the singular noun.

a) Changing the end letters ‘f’ or ‘fe’ to ‘ves’

Singular Plural
calf calves
half halves
knife knives
life lives

b) Adding ‘en’

Singular Plural
child children
ox oxen

c) Changing the middle letters or vowels

Singular Plural
foot feet
man men
mouse mice
tooth teeth

9
 d) Changing the end letters to ‘i' or ‘es’ for words with foreign origins

Singular Plural
analysis analyses
cactus cacti / cactuses
crisis crises
nucleus nuclei
radius radii

e) Changing the end letters ‘um’ or ‘on’ to ‘a’

Singular Plural
bacterium bacteria
criterion criteria
medium media
memorandum memoranda
phenomenon phenomena

III. Invariable Plural Nouns

Some words have plural forms the same as the singular forms.

Singular Plural
aircraft aircraft
bison bison
carp carp
deer deer
salmon salmon
sheep sheep
yen yen

Note:

 The plural form of fish is the same as its singular form. However, the plural fishes is
sometimes used when there is more than one type of fish involved, especially in a
scientific context.

Examples: I bought some fish from the supermarket yesterday.

I bought two fishes from the supermarket yesterday, a herring and a trout.

 Some nouns have a plural form, but are really singular uncountable nouns.

Examples: Mathematics (Maths) news

measles mumps

10
Exercise 3

Instructions:
Some of the nouns in the sentences are incorrect. Circle them and write the correct nouns
in the boxes provided. If there is no mistake, put a tick (  ) in the box.

Conservationists are concerned about what is happening to big 1. 

game in Kenya. Kenya, a country in eastern Africa, is the homes 2. home
of several large species of wildlife, including lion and elephants. 3. lions
For many decades, the wildlife has attracted crowd of tourists to 4. crowds
Kenya, wishing to go on safari. Until the 1970s, some of the 5. 
tourist were big-game hunters. They went there not just to 6. tourists
admire the pride of lions and the herds of elephants, but also to 7. prides
shoot them. Safari for hunters were popularised by Teddy 8. Safaris
Roosevelt, the US president, who went on a hunting trip to East 9. 
Africa in 1909. In the 1970s, there was a good deal of anxieties 10. anxiety
about dwindling stock of wildlife in the country. Indeed, people 11. stocks
in the world were beginning to worry about those animals which 12. 
were in danger of becoming extinct. Conservations and 13. Conservation
preservations were beginning to become issues of great 14. preservation
importance and, as a consequences of this, Kenya imposed a 15. consequence
ban on big-game hunting in 1977. Recently, however, the Kenyan 16. 
government passed a bill allowing local committee to grant ranch 17. committees
owners license which would enable them to hunt. The sponsors 18. licenses
of the new bill say that it is designed to improve the management 19. 
of large wild animal, such as lions. These, they claimed, were 20. animals
increasingly coming into conflict with human population and 21. populations
causing serious problems. They add that revenue from the 22. revenues
hunting licenses and those obtained from the sales of animal 23. sale
products will be put into the conservation budgets. There have 24. budget
been calls of outrages from conservationists. They say that illegal 25. outrage
hunting for the procurement of bush meats and ivory is a 26. meat
difficult enough situations. Licensed hunting will exacerbate 27. situation
greatly the existing problem. 28. 

11