Grammar Fun : Learn All about the 'NOUN'

What is a bloody NOUN?

Well, in this post you will learn 'What is a Noun'?
According to our middle-school teachers, a NOUN is a part of speech which tells a name of a person, place or thing. But, are you sure you can identify each and every noun, how to use correct noun? NO.  So, you need to understand the basics of noun .

So, to understand the basic concept of noun, consider the following situation.
Suppose, in your childhood you went to a circus with your parents and there you some exciting clowns, some unseen animals doing humorous stunts, the dwarfs making fun, and lots more.... I am sure you must have seen all this in some way or the other. But, the point is did you know who is a clown or what is the name of a particular animal by birth? It sounds awkward, but the answer is NO.
Well, we learn all these things as we grow up. I remember during my childhood, whenever  I saw something which I don't know about or rather I have seen it first time, I quickly went to my mother and asked "What is this?" or "Who is he"? etc.(making idiotic faces).
So, coming back to our topic, Noun is a word which answers these type of questions like"Who is he?" "What is that?" "What is the name of this animal?"
For example, a stranger comes to your home and rings the doorbell. The first question you would ask him is "Who are You"  and he will answer his name. Why he has come to your home? etc, .
So, in the above example, the name of that stranger is a NOUN.

You might be wondering why I have written all this non-sense? 
Yes, you are wondering. The answer is simple, I am not making you cram the definition of noun like all the moron school teachers did to me  rather I want that every reader of this post must understand the meaning of NOUN, not just learning its definition for school exams but relating the use of noun to our day-to-day life...

Now, we will touch the NOUN in details...

So, I hope you must have understood what a noun is...  Now we will move further and will learn the various types of nouns.

Again think of your childhood, what are the types of question you would have asked?
For example, you might have asked who is he when a unknown man came to your house?
You might have asked what is that animal when you first saw an elephant?
You might have asked what is that thing by looking at an umbrella?
There are infinite questions you might have asked and these various types of questions give rise to the various types of nouns. It is simple as we are just dividing the nouns in some pre-defined categories.
So, the question arise how do we classify nouns in different categories. Well, I also don't know who have classified nouns, but what we study is that we can classify nouns according to gender, number, etc. Given below are the types of nouns.

Types of nouns:

Proper noun : Name of a particular person or place. Example, Ashoka was a great King.
Here, Ashoka is a proper noun.
Common noun : A name given in common to every person. In the above example, Ashoka was a great king.
King is a common noun.

The concept is that, the noun Ashoka refers to a particular king but the noun king may be applied to other kings as well.

Collective noun : Name of a number of person or things taken together. Example, A fleet, which is a collection of ships and vessels.
Abstract nouns:  It is usually the name of a quality, action or state considered apart from the object to which it belongs; examples include;
Quality- goodness, kindness, etc,
Action - Laughter, theft, movement, etc.
State- Childhood, sleep, sickness etc

These were some classification of nouns. Now we will study some other important classification in details.

Classification of noun on the basis of gender.

In general there is no distinction between masculine, feminine in English nouns. However, gender is sometimes shown by different forms or different words when referring to people or animals.
A noun that denotes a male is  said to be of masculine gender; as; boy, lion, hero, etc.
A noun that denotes a female is  said to be of feminine gender; as; girl, lioness, heroine, etc.
A noun that denotes either a male or female is said to be of common gender; as; parent, child, etc.
A noun that denotes neither a male nor female is said to be of neuter gender; as; book,pen,  etc.

Objects without life are personified, as if they were living beings. We regard them as male or females;as;
The sun sheds his beams on rich and poor alike.

So , in this post you learnt about nouns and classification of nouns. In the further post, I will tell you more about nouns formation and will also study some more concepts of nouns.
Hope you enjoyed.

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