A noun can function in a sentence as a subject, a direct object, an indirect object, a subject complement, an object complement, an appositive, an adjective or an adverb. We shall be discussing examples of each type of these nouns at a later lesson.
Many common nouns, like "principal" or "teacher," can refer to men or women. Once, many English nouns would change form depending on their gender -- for example, a man was called an "actor" while a woman was called an "actress" -- but this use of gender-specific nouns is very rare today. Those that are still used occasionally tend to refer to occupational categories, as given in the following sentences.
Woody Allen was a very popular comedy actor.
Julie Andrews was a very popular British actress.
The manager was trying to write a want ad, but he couldn't decide whether he was advertising for a "waiter" or a "waitress"
A noun is a word used to name a person, animal, place, thing, and abstract idea. Abstract ideas exist as thoughts in mind, and are not related to physical objects or real events and actions. Later in the chapter we shall be discussing a noun called ‘abstract nouns’.
Nouns are generally the primary words which you first learn in English. The coloured words indicated in the following sentences are all nouns: A word or group of words used for referring to a person, thing, place, or quality, ‘father’, ‘chair’, ‘Los Angeles’, and ‘peace of mind’ all are nouns.
Late last month my father bought a pet dog.
Neil Diamond was a singer.
The train inspector looked at all the passengers' passes.
According to Plutarch, the library at Alexandria was destroyed in 48 B.C.
Philosophy is of little comfort to the starving.
A good command of English knowledge can guarantee success of your career and life! It can certainly improve chances of your career growth and reward you with many prospects in your life - get you a better job - increase your earning power and enrich your social life. When you can talk fluently and confidently, write clearly and concisely you impress your boss, colleagues and your friends, and become an elite member of your society.
You can acquire these skills quickly and easily if you have the determination and patience.
To help you be successful I shall be offering you step by step lessons in due course to improve your skills in English language.
The number of words in English has grown from 55,000 to 65,000 words approximately in Old English to more than a million today. There are a number of ways in which the English vocabulary enhances. The most prominent method in which it grows is by borrowing words from other languages. Approximatley 75% of the entries in any English dictionary are borrowed, mainly from Latin. Another way is by combining words into one word such as housewife, greenhouse, and overdue. The addition of prefixes and suffixes to words also increases the immense vocabulary of the English language.
Today, more than 800 million people use the English language. An average educated person knows about 20,000 words and uses about 2,000 words in a week. Despite its widespread use, there are only about 400 million people who use it as their mother tongue. As per researchers one out of four of the world's population speak English to some level of competence.
English has official or special status in at least 75 countries in the world with a total population of over two billion.
More than half of the world's technical and scientific periodicals as well three quarters of the world's communications are in English. About 80% of the information stored in the world's computers (such as this text) are also in English. English is also transmitted to more than 500 million people everyday by several largest broadcasting companies (CNN, BBC, EURO NEWS, AL JAZEERA, CCTV, CBS, NBC, ABC, CBC). It seems like English will remain the most widely used language for some time in this planet.
The history of the English language in fact started with the arrival of three Germanic tribes who conquered Britain during the 5th century AD. These ethnic groups, the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes, crossed the North Sea from what today is Denmark and northern Germany. At that time the inhabitants of Britain spoke a Celtic language. Celts are a member of an ancient group of people who lived in parts of Western Europe. But most of the Celtic speakers were moved towards west and north by the invaders - mainly into what is now Wales, Scotland and Ireland. The Angles came from Englaland and their language was called Englisc – from which the words England and English are derived. (Also called Anglo-Saxon is an early form of the English that was spoken and written in parts of what are now England and south-eastern Scotland between the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century).
Historically English originated from several dialects, now collectively termed Old English. Old English developed into Middle English, words heavily borrowing from the Norman (Anglo-French) vocabulary and spelling gatherings. A significant number of English words, especially technical words, have been constructed based on roots from Latin and ancient Greek as well.
As a result of the military, economic, scientific, political, and cultural influence of the British Empire during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries and of the United States since the mid 20th century it has become the lingua franca (language that people use to communicate when they have different first languages) in many parts of the world.
