Proper and Collective Nouns

1
Proper and Collective Nouns

• Christen Adams

2
Proper Nouns? Common Nouns? Whats the difference?

• Proper nouns and common nouns can be confused
  with each other for a couple of reasons. A common
  noun is defined as a person, place, idea or thing
  whereas a proper noun is a name given to a
  specific person, place, or thing. A proper noun
  always begins with a capital letter.

3
Examples of Proper Nouns

• I saw Jenny at Old Orchard Mall.
• George W. Bush is the current president of the
  United States of America.
• I live in Skokie, Illinois which is a Northwest
  suburb of Chicago.
• I want to visit Europe.
• I was born in the month of February.
• Saturdays and Sundays are my favorite days of the
  week because we have no school.
• I want to go to the DePaul University when I
  graduate high school.
• My favorite actress is Julia Roberts.

4
Title Case

• When names contain words such as of or the
  they are usually not capitalized.
• For example
• I want to visit the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
• or
• My favorite foreign holiday is the Day of the
  Dead which originated in Mexico.

5
Names and Titles

• You also use Proper Nouns to address somebody by
  name or their title such as
• Mr. Africa
• Mrs. Michael
• Ms. Godzilla

6
Other ways to use Proper Nouns

• given and family names
• terms of address
• towns, cities, villages, roads
• continents, countries, counties, states
• institutions, teams, clubs
• days of the week months
• ships, boats
• religions, events, festivals

7
Collective nouns

• A collective noun is a subject-specific word
  used to define a grouping of people, animals,
  objects or concepts.

8
More info on Collective Nouns

• In collective nouns you could count the
  individual members of the group, but you usually
  think of the group as a whole or generally as one
  unit.
• You need to be able to recognize collective nouns
  in order to maintain subject-verb agreement.
• Every afternoon the baseball team follows its
  coach out to the field to practice.
• Today, his class takes its first 100 question
  exam.
• The jury agrees that the prosecutor didnt have
  enough evidence, so its verdict was not guilty.
• The choir rehearsed its songs over and over for
  the recital.
• The team runs along the track during their
  practice.

9
Info continued

• A collective noun implies the described object
  ("He's on the jury of jurors."
• A collective noun is not used as a synonym for or
  type of collection ("set", "list", "group etc.).
  
• A collective noun is similar to a non-countable
  noun, which is not in a plural form and doesnt
  usually relate to anything you would expect to
  count, and is roughly the opposite of a countable
  noun, which is a noun with both a singular and a
  plural form, and names anything (or anyone) that
  you can count .
• It is usually only one word

10
Examples

• Some examples of collective nouns are
• Jury
• Team
• Choir
• Regiment
• Genus

11
Singular or Plural?

• Collective nouns can be used in an either
  singular use or a plural use depending on the
  sense of the sentence.
• Example
• Singular The electorate agrees on a certain
  politician.
• Plural The electorate agree on a certain
  politician.