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NOUNS COMMON AND PROPER

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While you write,

1. Keep the one viewpoint the photographer's viewpoint - that you select.

2. Choose words and expressions that tell exactly what you want the reader to see.

3. Try to make your word picture as clear as Stevenson made his description of Paris.

4. Keep your description short.

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Mark Twain and the Dictionary

One day, after listening to a very interesting sermon, Mark Twain said to the preacher: "That was an excellent sermon you gave us this morning. I have every word of it in a book in my study."

"In what book?" cried the indignant parson.

"I will send you a copy,” replied Mark Twain.

Next morning a messenger brought the book to the minister. He opened it and, to his surprise and great amusement, found it to be a copy of Webster's Dictionary!

Mark Twain spoke the truth. He had every word of the minister's sermon in his dictionary; and the preacher, too, had every word of his sermon in his dictionary. But, in spite of that, the preacher had given much thought and skill to choosing and combining the words that he used; had he not done this, his sermon would not have been interesting.

This art can be learned

So in your work, you have every word in the dictionary; but if you would speak and write well, you must learn to choose and to combine words in the best way. only by studying words. To study all the words in the dictionary seems a huge task; but when we learn that all these thousands of words can be divided into eight classes, it does seem possible, and even easy, to study some words of each class. Words are divided into these eight classes according to their use in sentences.

classes are called the Parts of Speech.

These

In the following sentence, let us see what

each word does.

The plainest birds often sing most sweetly.

NOUNS: COMMON AND PROPER

223

"Plainest" tells what kind of birds.

"Birds" tells what sing.

"Often" tells when the birds sing.

"Sing" tells what the birds do.

"Most" tells how sweetly.

"Sweetly" tells how the birds sing.

Now let us study just one of the Parts of Speech. The word "birds" is a name.

A word used as a name is called a noun.

"Noun" means name.

House, tree, ship, lamp, street, man, horse, cart, brook, and ocean are nouns because they

are names.

Think of ten nouns that are names of things in this room.

Some names belong to particular persons, places, or things. John, Mary, Albany, Ohio, Lake Erie, Mount Hood, are examples of such names.

The name of a particular person, place, or thing is called a proper name, or proper noun.

Every proper noun should begin with a capital letter.

Names that belong equally to each person or thing of a class are called common names, or common

nouns.

These are examples of common

names,

or

common nouns: boy, girl, city, state, lake, mountain.

The name "boy" belongs to, is common to, every boy; the name "girl" is common to every girl. To what is each one of the other names above "city," "state," "lake," "mountain"

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Copy the following list of common nouns. Place opposite each common noun a proper noun that is the particular name of a person or thing of the class to which the common noun belongs. Remember how proper nouns are written.

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In the above stanza, the author speaks of a "blare of bugles, a ruffle of drums." Suppose he had said, "the music of bugles and the beat of the drums"; would you like those words as well? Of course you would not. You not only like the sound of the words "blare" and "ruffle" better, you like these words for other reasons; "blare" and "ruffle" bring so vividly to your remembrance the sound of bugle and drum that you almost hear them you feel the martial music of the army. These words stir your heart and make you stand upright to greet the flag as it passes.

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In the next line the writer speaks of a "flash of color beneath the sky." What does he mean? Does not that one word, "flash," let you see the flag in motion, not hanging limp, but waving proudly as though alive?

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