What is a collective noun? A collective noun is simply a noun that describes a group of things, such as a herd of wildebeest. Collective nouns are different from the categories of nouns I have written about in the last few weeks, because they are more a subgroup of nouns rather than a way of
Mass or count? In this stunning photograph, we use two nouns to describe what we can see: we see two penguins on ice. And these two nouns demonstrate the final way nouns can be divided: into count nouns and mass nouns. Count nouns are also sometimes called unit nouns (in that unhelpful way in English
Abstract or concrete? Making your writing clearer Another useful way to divide nouns is to separate them into the categories of abstract and concrete. This does not stop them being proper or common; it is simply another way to look at them. This means that proper nouns can also be abstract or concrete, and common
Proper or common? Of queens, receptionists and capital letters One useful way to split up the infinite number of nouns is to divide them into common and proper nouns. It is a useful division, because proper nouns are a very strange group of nouns: in several ways, they have quite different characteristics from all other