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1. From your reading bring up sentences containing ten common nouns, five proper, five abstract.

NOTE.—Remember that all sentences are to be selected from standard literature.

2. Under what class of nouns would you place (a) the names of diseases, as pneumonia, pleurisy, catarrh, typhus, diphtheria; (b) branches of knowledge, as physics, algebra, geology, mathematics?

3. Mention collective nouns that will embrace groups of each of the following individual nouns:—

 man

 horse

 bird

 fish

 partridge

 pupil

 bee

 soldier

 book

 sailor

 child

 sheep

 ship

 ruffian

4. Using a dictionary, tell from what word each of these abstract nouns is derived:—

 sight

 speech

 motion

 pleasure

 patience

 friendship

 deceit

 bravery

 height

 width

 wisdom

 regularity

 advice

 seizure

 nobility

 relief

 death

 raid

 honesty

 judgment

 belief

 occupation

 justice

 service

 trail

 feeling

 choice

 simplicity

SPECIAL USES OF NOUNS.

Nouns change by use.

13. By being used so as to vary their usual meaning, nouns of one class may be made to approach another class, or to go over to it entirely. Since words alter their meaning so rapidly by a widening or narrowing of their application, we shall find numerous examples of this shifting from class to class; but most of them are in the following groups. For further discussion see the remarks on articles (p. 119).

Proper names transferred to common use.

14. Proper nouns are used as common in either of two ways:—

(1) The origin of a thing is used for the thing itself: that is, the name of the inventor may be applied to the thing invented, as a davy, meaning the miner's lamp invented by Sir Humphry Davy; the guillotine, from the name of Dr. Guillotin, who was its inventor. Or the name of the country or city from which an article is derived is used for the article: as china, from China; arras, from a town in France; port (wine), from Oporto, in Portugal; levant and morocco (leather).

Some of this class have become worn by use so that at present we can scarcely discover the derivation from the form of the word; for example, the word port, above. Others of similar character are calico, from Calicut; damask, from Damascus; currants, from Corinth; etc.

(2) The name of a person or place noted for certain qualities is transferred to any person or place possessing those qualities; thus—

Hercules and Samson were noted for their strength, and we call a very strong man a Hercules or a Samson. Sodom was famous for wickedness, and a similar place is called a Sodom of sin.

A Daniel come to judgment!—Shakespeare.

If it prove a mind of uncommon activity and power, a Locke, a Lavoisier, a Hutton, a Bentham, a Fourier, it imposes its classification on other men, and lo! a new system.—Emerson.

Names for things in bulk altered for separate portions.

15. Material nouns may be used as class names. Instead of considering the whole body of material of which certain uses are made, one can speak of particular uses or phases of the substance; as—

(1) Of individual objects made from metals or other substances capable of being wrought into various shapes. We know a number of objects made of iron. The material iron embraces the metal contained in them all; but we may say, "The cook made the irons hot," referring to flat-irons; or, "The sailor was put in irons" meaning chains of iron. So also we may speak of a glass to drink from or to look into; a steel to whet a knife on; a rubber for erasing marks; and so on.

(2) Of classes or kinds of the same substance. These are the same in material, but differ in strength, purity, etc. Hence it shortens speech to make the nouns plural, and say teas, tobaccos, paints, oils, candies, clays, coals.

(3) By poetical use, of certain words necessarily singular in idea, which are made plural, or used as class nouns, as in the following:—

The lone and level sands stretch far away.

From all around— Earth and her waters, and the depths of air— Comes a still voice. —Bryant.

Their airy ears

The winds have stationed on the mountain peaks. —Percival.

(4) Of detached portions of matter used as class names; as stones, slates, papers, tins, clouds, mists, etc.

Personification of abstract ideas.

16. Abstract nouns are frequently used as proper names by being personified; that is, the ideas are spoken of as residing in living beings. This is a poetic usage, though not confined to verse.

Next Anger rushed; his eyes, on fire, In lightnings owned his secret stings. —Collins.

Freedom's fame finds wings on every wind.—Byron.

Death, his mask melting like a nightmare dream, smiled.—Hayne.

Traffic has lain down to rest; and only Vice and Misery, to prowl or to moan like night birds, are abroad.—Carlyle.

A halfway class of words. Class nouns in use, abstract in meaning.

17. Abstract nouns are made half abstract by being spoken of in the plural.

They are not then pure abstract nouns, nor are they common class nouns. For example, examine this:—

The arts differ from the sciences in this, that their power is founded not merely on facts which can be communicated, but on dispositions which require to be created.—Ruskin.

When it is said that art differs from science, that the power of art is founded on fact, that disposition is the thing to be created, the words italicized are pure abstract nouns; but in case an art or a science, or the arts and sciences, be spoken of, the abstract idea is partly lost. The words preceded by the article a, or made plural, are still names of abstract ideas, not material things; but they widen the application to separate kinds of art or different branches of science. They are neither class nouns nor pure abstract nouns: they are more properly called half abstract.

Test this in the following sentences:—

Let us, if we must have great actions, make our own so.—Emerson.

And still, as each repeated pleasure tired, Succeeding sports the mirthful band inspired.—Goldsmith.

But ah! those pleasures, loves, and joys Which I too keenly taste, The Solitary can despise. —Burns.

All these, however, were mere terrors of the night.—Irving.

By ellipses, nouns used to modify.

18. Nouns used as descriptive terms. Sometimes a noun is attached to another noun to add to its meaning, or describe it; for example, "a family quarrel," "a New York bank," "the State Bank Tax bill," "a morning walk."

It is evident that these approach very near to the function of adjectives. But it is better to consider them as nouns, for these reasons: they do not give up their identity as nouns; they do not express quality; they cannot be compared, as descriptive adjectives are.

They are more like the possessive noun, which belongs to another word, but is still a noun. They may be regarded as elliptical expressions, meaning a walk in the morning, a bank in New York, a bill as to tax on the banks, etc.

NOTE.—If the descriptive word be a material noun, it may be regarded as changed to an adjective. The term "gold pen" conveys the same idea as "golden pen," which contains a pure adjective.

WORDS AND WORD GROUPS USED AS NOUNS.

The noun may borrow from any part of speech, or from any expression.

19. Owing to the scarcity of distinctive forms, and to the consequent flexibility of English speech, words which are usually other parts of speech are often used as nouns; and various word groups may take the place of nouns by being used as nouns.

Adjectives, Conjunctions, Adverbs.

(1) Other parts of speech used as nouns:—

The great, the wealthy, fear thy blow.—Burns.

Every why hath a wherefore.—Shakespeare.

When I was young? Ah, woeful When! Ah! for the change 'twixt Now and Then! —Coleridge.

(2) Certain word groups used like single nouns:—

Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.—Shakespeare.

Then comes the "Why, sir!" and the "What then, sir?" and the "No, sir!" and the "You don't see your way through the question, sir!"—Macaulay

(3) Any part of speech may be considered merely as a word, without reference to its function in the sentence; also titles of books are treated as simple nouns.

The it, at the beginning, is ambiguous, whether it mean the sun or the cold.—Dr. BLAIR

In this definition, is the word "just," or "legal," finally to stand?—Ruskin.

There was also a book of Defoe's called an "Essay on Projects," and another of Dr. Mather's called "Essays to do Good."—B. FRANKLIN.

Caution.

20. It is to be remembered, however, that the above cases are shiftings of the use, of words rather than of their meaning. We seldom find instances of complete conversion of one part of speech into another.

When, in a sentence above, the terms the great, the wealthy, are used, they are not names only: we have in mind the idea of persons and the quality of being great or wealthy. The words are used in the sentence where nouns are used, but have an adjectival meaning.

In the other sentences, why and wherefore, When, Now, and Then, are spoken of as if pure nouns; but still the reader considers this not a natural application of them as name words, but as a figure of speech.

NOTE.—These remarks do not apply, of course, to such words as become pure nouns by use. There are many of these. The adjective good has no claim on the noun goods; so, too, in speaking of the principal of a school, or a state secret, or a faithful domestic, or a criminal, etc., the words are entirely independent of any adjective force.