English is so simple - 2

Chapter One

Noun

A noun is a word that can be used as a person, place or thing.

I have begun this chapter because it is usually considered as the first of the eight parts of speech. Now you may be thinking what is this Parts of Speech???

Words are divided into different groups according to their use, that is, according to the work they do in the sentence. These groups are known as Parts of Speech.

E.g: Amit is an intelligent boy.

Now here “Amit” is a noun, “is” is a verb, “an” is an article, “Intellegent” is an adjective and “boy” is a noun. You can see that each and every part of a sentence is made from any particular part.

So to frame or construct any sentence you need to have basic knowledge of Parts of Speech. It contains: Noun, Pronoun, Verb, Adjective, Adverb, Preposition, Conjunction and Interjection. Don’t worry you are not going to cram all these words but we are going to learn as a separate chapter. Let us then start with noun.

Kinds of Nouns

A common noun is a name which is given to the thing which is common or you can say which belongs to the same group. A proper noun is the name of a particular person or place.

For example: Mr. Jayesh has enrolled himself for an MBA course. Mr. Vicky has also enrolled himself for an MBA course. Here MBA word is common in both the sentences, so it is known as common noun. But at the same time, Mr. Jayesh and Mr. Vicky are different persons, so they are known as proper nouns.

Rule: Proper Nouns are always written with a capital letter at the beginning.

Incorrect: The capital of gujarat is gandhinagar.

Correct: The capital of Gujarat is Gandhinagar.

Rule: Proper Nouns are sometimes used as common nouns.

Incorrect: Shila is Katrina Kaif of our class.

Here Katrina Kaif doesn’t mean actress. The word here stands for the qualities which Katrina Kaif possesses – beautiful, wonderful acting. Shila stands out among her friends because she is also very beautiful. This the should be visible in our original sentence. Katrina Kaif is used as common noun.

Correct: Shila is the Katrina Kaif of our class.

Common nouns comprises collective nouns, material nouns and abstract nouns.

Collective nouns is the name of any group of things or persons. For example, army of soldiers, crowd of people, flock of sheep, team of players, jury of judges … etc.

Rule: A collective noun usually takes a singular verb and is replaced by a singular pronoun.

Incorrect: The army have decided to take their luggage.

May be till now you were making the same mistake as I used to do before. But after reading the rule I corrected myself by:

Correct: The army has decided to take its luggage.

Why so ???

Actually the reason for keeping singular verb and singular pronoun is that army consists of many soldiers but they are acting as a group, so we are talking as a whole which is one body.

However, there are some cases when the members of a group do not act as whole but act as a single entity.

Rule: A collective noun takes a plural verb and is placed by a plural noun when you want to emphasize on each and every member of that group.

Incorrect: The jury was divided in its opinions.

See the word divided in the above statement. We can easily figure out that each judge has different opinion towards a person. Mr. A says Mr. Z has done for his protection. Mr. B will say Mr. Z has committed murder. Mr. C says Mr. Z is innocent.

Correct: The jury were divided in their opinions.

An abstract noun is usually the name of quality, action, or state considered apart from the object (which is usually a common noun and often qualified by an adjective) to which is belongs.

We can speak of a brave soldier, a strong boy, a beautiful dress. But we also think of these qualities apart from any particular person or thing, and speak of bravery, strength, beauty by themselves. So also we can speak of what persons do or feel apart from the persons themselves, and give it name.

Abstract nouns are formed:

1.      From Adjectives:

·         Kindness from kind

·         Honesty from honest

·         Fragrance from fragrant

·         Belligerence from belligerent

·         Goodness from good

·         Darkness from dark

2.      From Verbs:

·         Laughter from laugh

·         Movement from move

·         Judgment from judje

·         Hatred from hate

·         Obedience from obey

·         Growth from grow

3.      From Common Nouns:

·         Childhood from child

·         Boyhood from boy

·         Slavery from slave

·         Scholarship from scholar

·         Queenship from queen

A material noun is the name of a material (from which things can be made).

Rule: A material noun does not take an article (a, an, the) before it.

Incorrect: The cotton is a cash crop. (Here cotton is a material noun, because we can make many things from it).

Correct: Cotton is a cash crop.

Exercise: Identify the nouns (Common noun, Collective noun, Proper noun, Abstract noun)

1.      The jury was very big.

2.      Never tell lie.

3.      We hate dishonesty.

4.      Our army consists of twenty soldiers.

5.      The elephant has great strength.

6.      Cleanliness is next to godliness.

7.      We saw a class of students standing in the ground.

8.      A committee of five was appointed.

9.      This room is thirty feet in length.

10.  Rahul is a good boy.

Answers

1.      Crowd = Collective

2.      Lie = Abstract

3.      Dishonesty = Abstract

4.      Army = Collective, soldiers = Common

5.      Elephant = Common, strength = Abstract

6.      Cleanliness = Abstract, godliness = Abstract

7.      Class = Collective, students = Common, ground = Common

8.      Committee = Collective

9.      Room = Common, feet = Common, length = Abstract

10.  Rahul = Proper, boy = Common

 Made By: Chaudhary Amit V.