An English Grammar Author:William Dwight Whitney Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. NOUNS. Note. — In this and in later chapters, some exercises are given without specific directions for writing. If it is desired to have the c... more »lass write the exercises, the teacher should give clear and definite directions when the lesson is assigned. 58. A Noun is simply a name. Anything which we can put before our minds in such a way as to say something about it must be called by a name, and that name is a Noun. 59. It may be (a) The name of something which we perceive by our senses. Ex. textit{ball, tree, thunder, odor, flavor. (5) The name of a part of an object. Ex. textit{head, top, side, surface, end. (c) The name of the material of which an object is made. Ex. textit{flesh, silk, wood, silver, rubber. textit{(d) The name of a thing which we only think of, but do not see, or hear, or feel. Ex. textit{mind, soul, God, heaven. (e) The name of a quality or condition of an object. Ex. textit{truth, beauty, space, absence, color, weight. (/) The name of an action. Ex. textit{thinking, running, to walk, to read. (?) The name of an animal, a person, or a place. Ex. textit{Fido, Alice, John Quincy Adams, Jerusalem, Australia. 60. Test of a Noun. — There are so many nouns, and they are so different in kind, that we sometimes need to textit{try a word in order to be sure Whether it is really the textit{name of something. For example, if we wish to determine whether textit{skating is a nouu, we must see if it has any of the principal uses of a noun: — 1. If it is used as the subject of a sentence. Ex. textit{Skating is good exercise. 2. If it is the object of a verb. Ex. I textit{like skating. 3. If it is the object of a preposition. Ex. Are you fond textit{of skating ? 4. If it is qualified by an adjective. Ex. There ...« less