Nouns refer to things—the names of people (Dr. Sanders, lawyers), places (Kansas, factory, home), things (scissors, sheet music, book), or ideas (love, truth, beauty, intelligence). Let’s take a look at each of these types of nouns and how they need to be treated grammatically.

Nouns

A proper noun refers to a specific person, place, organization, etc. Proper nouns are capitalized because they are specific nouns.  Some examples of proper nouns are Steven, Apple (the company), New York (the state), and the Pittsburgh Steelers (the Pennsylvanian football team).

A common noun refers to a general group or class of people, places, objects, etc. Common nouns are generic words, like tissue or watch. They are always lowercase (unless they begin a sentence).

• common noun: girl
• proper noun: Esther

Nouns can be concrete (people, places, things that you can touch, see, hear) but they can also be abstract concepts like love, justice, and time.

Verbal Nouns

A verbal noun is a type of noun that is derived from a verb. It looks like a verb but actually functions in a sentence like a noun. Here are some examples:

Running from zombies is hard work.

Jogging is a good exercise that will help you prepare, but you have to do it every day.

We had a meeting to compare our zombie action plans.

Verbal nouns and something called gerunds (a form of a verb or verb phrase that functions as a noun phrase and subject in a sentence) are very similar. In fact, the first two examples above are examples of verbal nouns that are also gerunds. But, a verbal noun can be more than a gerund. In the last example, the word meeting is functioning like a noun but isn’t a noun phrase that’s the subject of a sentence.

It can certainly get a little confusing, and even the grammar experts disagree sometimes about the differences between verbal nouns and gerunds.

The key thing for you to remember is that, when we are talking about nouns, verbs can sometimes function in your sentences like nouns.

Compound Nouns

A compound noun is a noun that is the result of joining together two other words (such as tooth and paste making toothpaste).

Figure 1. Let’s look at the legend of Bigfoot as an example. The famous Bigfoot on the left is a humanoid figure that apparently lives in Pacific Northwest forests and is an example of a compound noun. On the right, you would have to have a big foot to wear that shoe.

A compound noun acts like one word, despite being a combination of two. Sometimes compound nouns are combined with no space (such as daydream); sometimes they retain the space (such as vacuum cleaner); and sometimes they use a hyphen (such as dry-cleaning).

If you’re ever in doubt whether a compound should be closed (no space), hyphenated (with a hyphen), or open (with a space), dictionaries are your best reference.

The process of making compound nouns plural has its own set of rules to follow. We pluralize (make plural) the primary noun of the compound.

• fisherman → fishermen (the main noun is man)
• blackbird → blackbirds (the main noun is bird)
• brother-in-law → brothers-in-law (the main noun is brothers)

If the word doesn’t have a primary noun (such as hand-me-down), we simply add s (hand-me-downs).

Some compound nouns differ in writing style depending on who you ask, while others are recently developed, such as e-mail being shortened further to email.

We’ve covered different kinds of nouns. Now let’s turn to two situations that make using nouns tricky: subject/verb agreement with collective nouns and pluralizing nouns.

Collective Nouns

Here, because each member went his or her separate way, the collective noun family functions as a group of individuals; therefore, you would use a plural verb (have) instead of a singular verb. Let’s look at another example.

• The whole family is coming to my house for Thanksgiving this year. I had better learn to cook a turkey.

Here, the family is seen as a single unit, so you would need a singular verb (is).

The key is to think about how you might perceive the collective noun and consider how it’s used in the sentence.

Pluralization

Figure 2. When reviewing your writing, double check your grammar by identifying if a plural word is considered “regular” or “irregular”.

English has both regular and irregular plural nouns. Regular plurals follow a rule (and other similar rules) so you generally know how to pluralize them, but irregular plurals are, well, not regular and don’t follow a “standard” rule.

Regular Plurals

Let’s start with regular plurals: regular plural nouns use established patterns to indicate that there is more than one of a thing. As was mentioned earlier, we add the plural suffix –s or –es to most words (cats, zebras, classes, foxes, heroes). Remember that when words have a foreign origin (e.g., Latin, Greek, Spanish), we just add the plural suffix –s (tacos, avocados, maestros).

When a word ends in y and there is a consonant before y, we change the y to i and add –es. Thus sky becomes skies. However, if the y follows another vowel, you simply add an –s. (donkeys, alloys). When a word ends in –f or –fe, we change the f to v and add –es (calves, leaves). However, if there are two terminal fs, or if you still pronounce the f in the plural, you simply add an –s (cliffs, chiefs).

Irregular Plurals

Irregular plurals, unlike regular plurals, don’t necessarily follow any particular pattern—instead, they follow a lot of different patterns. For this reason, irregular plurals require a lot of memorization. If you’re ever in doubt, the dictionary is there for you.

The first kind of irregular plural we’ll talk about is the no-change or base plural. In these words, the singular noun has the exact same form as the plural (sheep, fish, deer, moose). Most no-change plurals are types of animals.

The next type of irregular is the mid-word vowel change. This includes words like tooth, man, and mouse, which become teeth, men, and mice.

We also have the plural –en. In these words, –en is used as the plural ending instead of –s or -es.

• child → children
• ox → oxen
• brother → brethren
• sister → sistren

The last category of irregular plurals is borrowed words. These words are native to other languages (e.g., Latin, Greek) and have retained the pluralization rules from their original tongue.

The rules presented in the table above are almost always followed, but as a borrowed word becomes more popular in its usage, it can be adopted into regular pluralization. For example, formulas and appendixes are accepted words in formal situations. Also, in informal speech, cactuses and funguses are acceptable.

Count vs. Non-count Nouns

Count nouns are nouns that can be counted. Count nouns can be associated with a numerical value (i.e., three whales) in both its singular and plural forms (one fox, two foxes). In some cases, the number can be replaced by the words a, an, or the (a fox, an owl, the squirrel).

If a noun cannot have a numerical value nor a plural form, it is called a non-count or mass noun. A person can give another person advice, but they cannot give three advices, because advice has no quantity. Other examples of non-count nouns include nouns like weather, happiness, homework, furniture, thunder, etc. You will know that something is a non-count noun if it sounds weird when you try to pluralize it by adding an -s to the end. For example, you can’t have “furnitures” or “thunders,” but you can have “pieces of furniture” or “claps of thunder.”