There are several types of nouns
- – Some nouns name specific people or things. They are called proper nouns. For example: Jane, Atlantic Ocean
- – Some nouns cannot be counted. They are non-countable nouns. For example: sugar, water
- – Some nouns refer to a group of things. They are called collective nouns. For example: team, class
- – Some words can join to make one noun. These nouns are called compound nouns. For example: Football, mother-in-law
Common and Proper Nouns
Nouns are either common nouns or proper nouns.
Common nouns are words for general people, places, and things. Some examples are:
woman, street, river, town
Proper nouns name specific people, places, and things. Examples include:
India, Main Street, Ganga River, Mumbai
Have you been to Newyork?
Newyork is a specific place. It is a proper noun.
Sanjay Kumar was a very talented actor.
Sanjay Kumar is a specific person.
Recognizing Proper and Common Nouns
Proper nouns are almost always capitalized. Common nouns are not usually capitalized. They are only capitalized at the beginning of the sentence.
Countable and Non-Countable Nouns
Countable nouns are nouns that can conceptually or grammatically be counted. There can be just one of its kind or there can be more than one.
apple, child, tree, hour, letter
Non-Countable nouns are nouns that cannot be counted such as:
excitement, sugar, ketchup, sadness
Using Countable Nouns
Countable nouns have plural forms that mean “more than one”
Countable nouns can be counted with numbers. For example:
1 apple, 2 apples, 3 apples
In sentences, singular countable nouns must have a determiner before them. These include the words the, a, or an.
The plural forms can take determiners such as the, these, those, several, few, some of, many.
Using Non-Countable Nouns
Non-countable nouns cannot be counted. So they do not have plural forms. For example, say:
I have money. Not I have moneys.
Money is non-countable. It refers to a collective thing. It does not have a plural.
I have a lot of money.
This sentence emphasizes how much money. Use a phrase like “a lot of” instead of the plural.
Non-countable nouns often follow words such as some, much, little, an amount of. We cannot add a or an before them. It is wrong to say ‘a bread’ or ‘a furniture’. For example:
Do you want me to buy a loaf of bread?
To talk about a certain amount of bread, use a phrase like a loaf of.
Collective Nouns
A collective noun names a group of people or things. Examples include:
Committee, class, flock of geese,bunch of flowers, pack of mules, complex of buildings
Using Collective Nouns
We think of the collective noun as one thing. A collective noun is usually used as a singular noun. For example:
Our class went to the museum today.
The class is a unit.
Sometimes a single collective noun can imply singular or plural in number.
The team is winning!
Here the team is seen as one unit.
The team is cooperating well tonight.
The team is seen as many individuals.
Compound Nouns
Compound nouns are nouns made up of two or more words. For example:
Stowaway, bathtub, boarding pass, mother-in-law
Writing Compound Nouns
Sometimes the words are directly correlated, such as baseball. Other times there is a space between the words, as in train station. Some words are connected with a hyphen, such as merry-go-round. The dictionary is the best place to check the spelling.