Category: Nouns

Imagine for a moment if current English had expressions such as these: Raymond has been looking for notebook. Does Busara have shoe? The baseball team will not board plane. Aside from sounding primitive, these sentences leave us with potentially incomplete information. For example, in the first sentence, has Raymond been looking for any notebook or …

What do you think when you read the following paragraph? Jameson stood far back in the alley. Jameson lit Jameson's cigarette and drew on the cigarette, making the cigarette crackle and glow in the dark, lighting part of Jameson's face. You see a scene is developing. As it is, you may begin to notice the …

We recently discussed how nouns can be made into verbs, a practice referred to as verbing: e.g., Why don't you friend me on Facebook? Within its dynamic fluidity, English also often uses verbs as nouns or turns verbs into them, a process known as nominalization. Examples Let's go for a walk. What an epic fail. …

A fixed grammar lets us communicate with a clear, ordered structure we can all understand. Functioning as a GPS for directing our thoughts and ideas, it provides accurate markers and routes for moving our mind's content into intelligible expressions. While language is organized to unify understanding, it also can bend and flex to expand intentions …

We use nouns in American English to identify persons, places, things, states of being, and qualities. Our noun references might also be specific or nonspecific. Examples I saw the car. (specific) I saw the BMW four-door sedan. (specific) I saw a car. (nonspecific) In the first sentence, we explain we saw a particular car. It …

English includes words that look and sound like verbs but are not serving a sentence as such. You likely hear them often: You said you like skydiving? What about cliff jumping? The door was closed, so I couldn't hear them—their voices were muffled. Alexander said their plan is to escape. Each underlined word is an …

In writing and in speech, we will often include information that further specifies or identifies what we are communicating: Caleb's son, Richard Jane Doe, the mayor Linus, Lucy's brother When we include this extra information, we are using what is known in grammar as apposition. We also refer to these additional details as appositives. Apposition …

When we refer to case in English grammar, we indicate the form that a noun or pronoun takes according to its function in a sentence. The three cases in English are subjective, objective, and possessive. This review will center on the objective case. What Is the Objective Case? The objective case is the case we …

Would you please hand me that flower vase, my dear? Joaquin, how much rice does the recipe call for? You know, my friend, I'm not sure if we're going to make it on time. Most of us are familiar with expressions like these. We might also communicate in similar ways when writing salutations such as …

Michelangelo was a painter. Mr. Yao is a mathematician. Her favorite gifts are roses. In each of these sentences, we have a subject, a verb (more specifically, a linking verb), and another noun. The second noun in each sentence renames or identifies the subject noun (Michelangelo = painter, Mr. Yao = mathematician, gifts = roses). …