Grammar 3

 

Nouns

A noun is a person, place, or thing.

Proper nouns are the names of specific people, places and things. Here are some examples of proper nouns:

Proper nouns must be capitalized.

Let me say that again: Proper nouns must be capitalized!

I can already hear you: "Oh, Mr. Hall, we already know that! We learned about proper nouns in first grade!"

Then my response is this: "Then why don't you do it?"

Honestly, about 50% of my students every year fail to capitalize proper nouns consistently. It drives me crazy.

So . . . please be in the half of the class that gets it right. Otherwise, you're writing at a first grade level, and that's embarrassing for all of us.

When in doubt, Google it.

Occasionally, it may not be obvious whether a noun should be capitalized or not.

For example, let's say you're writing about french fries. The word "French" is usually capitalized, but in this case, you're not sure. So Google it! Search for the words "french fries" and see what other people are doing. Or do a search like the one that I did just now: "Should french fries be capitalized?"

By doing so, I learned that the "french" in french fries is an exception to the rule: Usually it's not capitalized.

Proper Nouns That Students Often Get Wrong

For some reason, many of my students like to capitalize the names of the seasons. That's wrong. Do not capitalize the names of seasons, unless they are part of a proper name. Study the following examples.

Do capitalize the names of days and months:

Also, I'm often asked whether to capitalize the names of classes, such as Math, Science, Social Studies, etc. This one's a bit tricky. If you're talking about math or science, in general, you wouldn't capitalize these words.

But if you're talking about a specific class, you would capitalize it, like this:

"English" and other languages should always be capitalized. And if you're talking about this class, it's English Language Arts.

Instructions for the Quiz

Answer the questions.

Quiz