Of nouns there are two kinds, proper and appellative.
A proper noun, or name, is the name of an individual, as Alexander, London, Vesuvius.
An appellative, or common noun, expresses a genus, or class of things, and is common or applicable to every individual of that class.
Nouns or Substantives (for these terms are equivalent) have also been divided into natural, artificial, and abstract. Of the first class, man, horse, tree, are examples. The names of things of our own formation are termed artificial substantives, as, watch, house, ship. The names of qualities or properties, conceived as existing by themselves, or separated from the substances to which they belong, are called abstract nouns; while Adjectives, expressing these qualities as conjoined with their subjects, are called concretes. Hard, for example, is termed the concrete, hardness the abstract.
Nouns have also been considered as denoting genera, species, and individuals. Thus man is a generic term, an Englishman a special term, and George an individual. Appellative nouns being employed to denote genera or species, and these orders comprising each many individuals, hence arises that accident of a common noun, called Number, by which we signify, whether one or more individuals of any genus or species be intended.
In English there are two numbers, the singular and the plural. The singular, expressing only one of a class or genus, is the noun in its simple form, as, river; the plural, denoting more than one, is generally formed by adding the letter s to the singular, as, rivers[9]. To this rule, however, there are many exceptions.
Nouns ending in ch, sh, ss, or x, form their plural by adding the syllable es to the singular number, as, church, churches. Dr. Whately, (Archbishop of Dublin,) in violation of this universal rule, writes premiss in the singular number, and premises in the plural. (See his Logic, pp. 25, 26.) Premise, like promise, is the proper term, and makes premises in the plural. Premiss and premises are repugnant to all analogy.—Ch hard takes s for the plural termination, and not es, as patriarch, patriarchs; distich, distichs.
Nouns ending in f or fe, make their plural by changing f or fe into ves, as, calf, calves; knife, knives. Except hoof, roof, grief, dwarf, mischief, handkerchief, relief, muff, ruff, cuff, snuff, stuff, puff, cliff, skiff, with a few others, which in the formation of their plurals follow the general rule.
Nouns in o impure form their plural by adding es, as, hero, heroes; echo, echoes: those which end in o pure, by adding s, as, folio, folios.
Some nouns have their plural in en, thus following the Teutonic termination, as, ox, oxen; man, men.