1.7 Parts of Speech - Part One

Common & Proper Nouns

Nouns are the heart of descriptive writing.  A noun is a person, place, thing, or idea – and that’s what you are describing in descriptive writing. Nouns can be broken down into the following groups:

• common nouns
• proper nouns
• concrete nouns
• abstract nouns

1. Most nouns are common nouns and refer to people, places, animals, and things.
   Examples: student, cat, school, language
   
   
2. Proper nouns are the names of specific people, places, animals and things. They begin with a capital letter.
   Examples: Naomi Silver, Squamish, University of Victoria, Halq'eméylem

REMEMBER to capitalize proper nouns! This makes English teachers happy. (Notice how English is capitalized – all languages and nationalities are capitalized.)