NOUNS
9. A noun has been defined as a word used as the name of something. It may be the name
of a person, a place, a thing, or of some abstract quality, such as, justice or truth.
10. Common and Proper Nouns. A Proper Noun is a noun that names some particular
or special place, person, people, or thing. A proper noun should always begin with a capital
letter; as, English, Rome, Jews, John. A Common Noun is a general or class name.
11. Inflection Defined. The variation in the forms of the different parts of speech to show
grammatical relation, is caled Inflection. Though there is some inflection in English,
grammatical relation is usualy shown by position rather than by inflection.
The noun is inflected to show number, case, and gender.
12. Number is that quality of a word which shows whether it refers to one or to more than
one. Singular Number refers to one. Plural Number refers to more than one.
13. Plurals of singular nouns are formed according to the following rules:
1. Most nouns add s to the singular; as, boy, boys; stove, stoves.
2. Nouns ending in s, ch, sh, or x, add es to the singular; as, fox, foxes; wish, wishes;
glass, glasses; coach, coaches.
3. Nouns ending in y preceded by a vowel ( a, e, i, o, u) add s; as, valley, valleys, ( soliloquy, soliloquies and colloquy, colloquies are exceptions). When y is preceded by a
consonant (any letter other than a vowel), y is changed to i and es is added; as, army,
armies; pony, ponies; sty, sties.
4. Most nouns ending in f or fe add s, as, scarf, scarfs; safe, safes. A few change f or fe Page 8
to v and add es; as, wife, wives; self, selves. The others are: beef, calf, elf, half, leaf, loaf,
sheaf, shelf, staff, thief, wharf, wolf, life. ( Wharf has also a plural, wharfs.)
5. Most nouns ending in o add s; as, cameo, cameos. A number of nouns ending in o
preceded by a consonant add es; as, volcano, volcanoes. The most important of the latter
class are: buffalo, cargo, calico, echo, embargo, flamingo, hero, motto, mulatto, negro,
potato, tomato, tornado, torpedo, veto.
6. Letters, figures, characters, etc., add the apostrophe and s ( 's); as, 6's, c's, t's, that's.
7. The folowing common words always form their plurals in an irregular way; as, man,
men; ox, oxen; goose, geese; woman, women; foot, feet; mouse, mice; child, children;
tooth, teeth; louse, lice.
Compound Nouns are those formed by the union of two words, either two nouns or a
www.gutenberg.org/files/22577/22577-h/22577-h.htm
11/202
8/8/12
Practical Grammar and Composition
noun joined to some descriptive word or phrase.
8. The principal noun of a compound noun, whether it precedes or folows the descriptive
part, is in most cases the noun that changes in forming the plural; as, mothers-in-law,
knights-errant, mouse-traps. In a few compound words, both parts take a plural form; as,
man-servant, men-servants; knight-templar, knights-templars.
9. Proper names and titles generaly form plurals in the same way as do other nouns; as,
Senators Webster and Clay, the three Henrys. Abbreviations of titles are little used in the
plural, except Messrs. ( Mr. ), and Drs. ( Dr. ).
10. In forming the plurals of proper names where a title is used, either the title or the name
may be put in the plural form. Sometimes both are made plural; as, Miss Brown, the Misses
Brown, the Miss Browns, the two Mrs. Browns.
11. Some nouns are the same in both the singular and the plural; as, deer, series, means,
gross, etc.
12. Some nouns used in two senses have two plural forms. The most important are the
folowing:
brother
brothers (by blood)
brethren (by association)
cloth
cloths (kinds of cloth)
clothes (garments)
die
dies (for coinage)
dice (for games)
fish
fishes (separately)
fish (colectively)
Page 9
genius
geniuses (men of genius)
genii (imaginary beings)
head
heads (of the body)
head (of cattle)
index
indexes (of books)
indices (in algebra)
pea
peas (separately)
pease (colectively)
penny
pennies (separately)
pence (colectively)
sail
sails (pieces of canvas)
sail (number of vessels)
shot
shots (number of discharges)
shot (number of bals)
13. Nouns from foreign languages frequently retain in the plural the form that they have in
the language from which they are taken; as, focus, foci; terminus, termini; alumnus,
alumni; datum, data; stratum, strata; formula, formulœ; vortex, vortices; appendix,
appendices; crisis, crises; oasis, oases; axis, axes; phenomenon, phenomena;
automaton, automata; analysis, analyses; hypothesis, hypotheses; medium, media;
vertebra, vertebrœ; ellipsis, ellipses; genus, genera; fungus, fungi; minimum, minima;
thesis, theses.
EXERCISE 3
Write the plural, if any, of every singular noun in the following list; and the singular,
if any, of every plural noun. Note those having no singular and those having no plural.
www.gutenberg.org/files/22577/22577-h/22577-h.htm
12/202
8/8/12
Practical Grammar and Composition
News, goods, thanks, scissors, proceeds, puppy, studio, survey, attorney, arch, belief,
chief, charity, half, hero, negro, majority, Mary, vortex, memento, joy, lily, knight-templar,
knight-errant, why, 4, x, son-in-law, Miss Smith, Mr. Anderson, country-man, hanger-on,
major-general, oxen, geese, man-servant, brethren, strata, sheep, mathematics, pride, money,
pea, head, piano, veto, knives, ratios, alumni, feet, wolves, president, sailor-boy, spoonful,
rope-ladder, grandmother, attorney-general, cupful, go-between.
When in doubt respecting the form of any of the above, consult an unabridged
dictionary.
14. Case. There are three cases in English: the Nominative, the Possessive, and the
Objective.
The Nominative Case; the form used in address and as the subject of a verb.
The Objective Case; the form used as the object of a verb or a preposition. It is always
the same in form as is the nominative.
Since no error in grammar can arise in the use of the nominative or the objective cases of Page 10
nouns, no further discussion of these cases is here needed.
The Possessive Case; the form used to show ownership. In the forming of this case we
have inflection.
15. The following are the rules for the forming of the possessive case:
1. Most nouns form the possessive by adding the apostrophe and s ( 's); as, man, man's;
men, men's; pupil, pupil's; John, John's.
2. Plural nouns ending in s form the possessive by adding only the apostrophe ('); as,
persons, persons'; writers, writers' . In stating possession in the plural, then one should say:
Carpenters' tools sharpened here, Odd Fellows' wives are invited, etc.
3. Some singular nouns ending in an s sound form the possessive by adding the apostrophe
alone; as, for appearance' sake, for goodness' sake. But usage inclines to the adding of the
apostrophe and s ( 's) even if the singular noun does end in an s sound; as, Charles's book,
Frances's dress, the mistress's dress.
4. When a compound noun, or a group of words treated as one name, is used to denote
possession, the sign of the possessive is added to the last word only; as, Charles and John's
mother (the mother of both Charles and John), Brown and Smith's store (the store of the
firm Brown & Smith).
5. Where the succession of possessives is unpleasant or confusing, the substitution of a
prepositional phrase should be made; as, the house of the mother of Charles's partner,
instead of, Charles's partner's mother's house.
6. The sign of the possessive should be used with the word immediately preceding the
word naming the thing possessed; as, Father and mother's house, Smith, the lawyer's,
www.gutenberg.org/files/22577/22577-h/22577-h.htm
13/202
8/8/12
Practical Grammar and Composition
office, The Senator from Utah's seat.
7. Generaly, nouns representing inanimate objects should not be used in the possessive
case. It is better to say the hands of the clock than the clock's hands.
NOTE.—One should say somebody else's, not somebody's else. The expression
somebody else always occurs in the one form, and in such cases the sign of the possessive
should be added to the last word. Similarly, say, no one else's, everybody else's, etc.
EXERCISE 4
Page 11
Write the possessives of the following:
Oxen, ox, brother-in-law, Miss Jones, goose, man, men, men-servants, man-servant,
Maine, dogs, attorneys-at-law, Jackson & Jones, John the student, my friend John, coat,
shoe, boy, boys, Mayor of Cleveland.
EXERCISE 5
Write sentences illustrating the use of the possessives you have formed for the first
ten words under Exercise 4.
EXERCISE 6
Change the following expressions from the prepositional phrase form to the
possessive:
1. The ships of Germany and France.
2. The garden of his mother and sister.
3. The credit of Jackson & Jones.
4. The signature of the president of the firm.
5. The coming of my grandfather.
6. The lives of our friends.
7. The dog of both John and Wiliam.
8. The dog of John and the dog of Wiliam.
9. The act of anybody else.
10. The shortcomings of Alice.
11. The poems of Robert Burns.
12. The wives of Henry the Eighth.
13. The home of Mary and Martha.
14. The novels of Dickens and the novels of Scott.
15. The farm of my mother and of my father.
16. The recommendation of Superintendent Norris.
EXERCISE 7
Correct such of the following expressions as need correction. If apostrophes are
omitted, insert them in the proper places:
www.gutenberg.org/files/22577/22577-h/22577-h.htm
14/202
8/8/12
Practical Grammar and Composition
1. He walked to the precipices edge.
2. Both John and Wiliam's books were lost.
3. They sel boy's hats and mens' coats.
Page 12
4. My friends' umbrela was stolen.
5. I shal buy a hat at Wanamaker's & Brown's.
6. This student's lessons.
7. These students books.
8. My daughters coming.
9. John's wife's cousin.
10. My son's wife's aunt.
11. Five years imprisonment under Texas's law.
12. John's books and Wiliams.
13. The Democrat's and Republican Convention.
14. France's and England's interests differ widely.
15. The moons' face was hidden.
16. Wine is made from the grape's juice.
17. Morton, the principals, signature.
18. Jones & Smith, the lawyers, office.
16. Gender. Gender in grammar is the quality of nouns or pronouns that denotes the sex
of the person or thing represented. Those nouns or pronouns meaning males are in the
Masculine Gender. Those meaning females are in the Feminine Gender. Those referring
to things without sex are in the Neuter Gender.
In nouns gender is of little consequence. The only regular inflection is the addition of the
sylable- ess to certain masculine nouns to denote the change to the feminine gender; as,
author, authoress; poet, poetess. -I x is also sometimes added for the same purpose; as,
administrator, administratrix.
The feminine forms were formerly much used, but their use is now being discontinued, and
the noun of masculine gender used to designate both sexes.