THE COMMON NOUNS AND PROPER NOUNS

THE COMMON NOUNS AND PROPER NOUNS

A common noun is a noun which can refer to a general name of an object. This type of noun does not use a capital letter unless it is appearing at the start of a sentence. The common noun is not used to identify a specific person, thing, or place.

A good example of a common noun is the word ‘man.’ Using this noun does not allow us to determine a specific man. You can see this in the following sentence.

-The man walked down the street.

When we read this sentence, all we know is that a man is walking down a street (which is also a common noun) but the identity of the street or the man is not revealed.

The other type of noun is a proper noun and this is used to talk about a specific person, item or place. The proper noun always uses a capital letter, whether it appears at the beginning, middle or end of the sentence. A good example of a proper noun would be the name of a person.

For example Graham. Look at the following sentence.

Graham is walking down the road.

We can see from the use of the proper noun that we are being told about a specific person. Other proper nouns might be the names of towns and countries.

For example:

Paris is a large city in France.

Both Paris and France are the proper nouns within this sentence.