A noun is a word used to refer to people, animals, objects, substances, states, events and feelings. Nouns can be a subject or an object of a verb, can be modified by an adjective and can take an article or determiner. For example:
- Table
- Pencil
- The dog
- A white house
Nouns also denote abstract and intangible concepts.For example:
- birth
- happiness
- evolution
- technology, etc.
Noun Plurals
We are going to explain some rules that will help you to form the plural forms
of the nouns. The general rule is to add “-s” to the noun in
singular.For exaample:
- Book – Books
- House – Houses
- Chair – Chairs
When the singular noun ends in: -sh, -ch, -s, -ss, -x, -o we form their plural form by adding “-es”.For exaample:
- sandwich – sandwiches
- brush – brushes
- bus – buses
- box – boxes
- potato – potatoes
When the singular noun ends in “y”, we change the “y” for “i” and then add “-es” to form the plural form. But do not change the “y” for “ies” to form the plural when the singular noun ends in “y” preceded by a vowel.For exaample:
- nappy – nappies
- day – days
- toy – toys
However, there are many Irregular Nouns which do not form the plural in this way:For exaample:
- Woman – Women
- Child – Children
- Sheep – Sheep
Nouns may take an ” ‘s ” (“apostrophe s”) or “Genitive marker” to indicate possession. If the noun already has an -s ending to mark the plural, then the genitive marker appears only as an apostrophe after the plural form.For example:
- My girlfriend’s brother
- John’s house
- The Browns’ house
- The boys’ pens
The genitive marker should not be confused with the ” ‘s ” form of contracted verbs, as in John’s a good student = John is a good student.
Noun Gender
Many common nouns, like “engineer” or “teacher”, can refer to men or women. Once, many English nouns would change form depending on their gender. For example: A man was called an “author” while a woman was called an “authoress”.For example:
- David Garrick was a very prominent eighteenth-century actor.
- Sarah Siddons was at the height of her career as an actress in the 1780s.
- The manager was trying to write a want ad, but he couldn’t decide whether he was advertising for a “waiter” or a “waitress”
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