A noun is a word used as the name of anything that can be thought of, John, boy, paper, cold, fear, crowd. There are three things about a noun which indicate its relation to other words, its number, its gender, and its case. There are two numbers, singular meaning one, and plural meaning more than one.
The plural is generally formed by adding s to the singular. There are a small number of nouns which form their plurals differently, mouse, mice; child, children; foot, feet. These must be learned individually from a dictionary or spelling book. There are some nouns which undergo changes in the final syllable when the s is added, torch, torches; staff, staves; fly, flies. These also must be learned individually. There are some nouns which have no singular, such as cattle, clothes, some which have no plural, such as physics, honesty, news, and some which are the same in both singular and plural, such as deer, trout, series. Care must be taken in the use of these nouns, as in some cases their appearance is misleading, e. g., mathematics, physics, and the like are singular nouns having no plural, but owing to their form they are often mistaken for plurals.
Compound nouns, that is to say, nouns formed by the combination of two or three words which jointly express a single idea, generally change the principal word in the forming of the plural, hangers-on, ink rollers, but in a few cases both words change, for example, men-servants. These forms must be learned by observation and practice. It is very important, however, that they be thoroughly learned and correctly used. Do not make such mistakes as brother-in-laws, man-servants.
Perhaps the most important use of number is in the relation between the noun and the verb. The verb as well as the noun has number forms and the number of the noun used as subject should always agree with that of the verb with which it is connected. Such expressions as "pigs is pigs," "how be you?" and the like, are among the most marked evidences of ignorance to be found in common speech. When this paragraph was originally written a group of high school boys were playing football under the writer's window. Scraps of their talk forced themselves upon his attention. Almost invariably such expressions as "you was," "they was," "he don't," "it aint," and the like took the place of the corresponding correct forms of speech.
Collective nouns, that is the nouns which indicate a considerable number of units considered as a whole, such as herd, crowd, congress, present some difficulties because the idea of the individuals in the collection interferes with the idea of the collection itself. The collective nouns call for the singular form of the verb except where the thought applies to the individual parts of the collection rather than to the collection as a whole, for instance, we say,
The crowd looks large.
but we say,
The crowd look happy.
because in one case we are thinking of the crowd and in the other of the persons who compose the crowd. So in speaking of a committee, we may say
The Committee thinks that a certain thing should be done.