55. Nouns are divided into two classes—proper nouns and common nouns.
1. A proper noun is the name of a particular person, place, or thing.
Examples:
- Lincoln,
- Napoleon,
- Ruth,
- Gladstone,
- America,
- Denver,
- Jove,
- Ohio,
- Monday,
- December,
- Yale,
- Christmas,
- Britannia,
- Niagara,
- Merrimac,
- Elmwood,
- Louvre,
- Richardson,
- Huron,
- Falstaff.
2. A common noun is a name which may be applied to any one of a class of persons, places, or things.
Examples:
- general,
- emperor,
- president,
- clerk,
- street,
- town,
- desk,
- tree,
- cloud,
- chimney,
- childhood,
- idea,
- thought,
- letter,
- dynamo,
- cruiser,
- dictionary,
- railroad.
Proper nouns begin with a capital letter; common nouns usually begin with a small letter.
Note. Although a proper noun is the name of a particular person, place, or thing, that name may be given to more than one individual. More than one man is named James; but when we say James, we think of one particular person, whom we are calling by his own name. When we say man, on the contrary, we are not calling any single person by name: we are using a noun which applies, in common, to all the members of a large class of persons.
Any word, when mentioned merely as a word, is a noun. Thus,—