Talk:English in Use/Nouns

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Trying to describe a noun is hard! Words are just text labels for objects, concepts, actions, attributes, or simply "things" which fulfil certain functions within the languages which use them. Nouns are words which are associated with physical objects, or with abstract concepts, or with the names of people or objects or concepts.

I am not sure that it is OK to say that "Nouns are just names"!

Further, I do wonder whether it makes sense to do this section without using images. Mention is made of a chair, but this does not make sense to anyone who does not already know a word for chair, or who has not seen a chair or used one. David Martland 11:06, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I copied the exercises here, this article is already much too long. Adding the whole Wikipedia article on plurals there made it a mess. Perhaps the articles should be in a separate article, as a long article with many exercises in the middle is almost impossible to follow. Tkorrovi (talk) 15:39, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Exercises

Write the plurals. Follow the examples.

Exercise 1 Most plurals ? noum + -s.

  • e.g.: book ? books


cat        ____________________________________ 

chair      ____________________________________ 

girl       ____________________________________ 
 
sofa       ____________________________________ 

student    ____________________________________

Exercise 2 Nouns ending in -s,-ss,-sh,-ch,-x,-z ? noum + -es, which is spelled -es if the word does not already end with -e.

  • e.g.: glass ? glasses, phase ? phases


dish       ____________________________________ 

witch      ____________________________________

Exercise 3 Nouns ending in -y preceded by a vowel ? noum + -s.

  • e.g.: boy ? boys


day        ____________________________________

monkey     ____________________________________

key        ____________________________________

Exercise 4 Nouns ending in -y preceded by a consonant ? -y + -ies

  • e.g.: cherry ? cherries


lady       ____________________________________

Exercise 5 Nouns ending in –o ? noun + -es

  • e.g.: hero ? heroes


potato     ____________________________________

volcano    ____________________________________

Exeptions:


a) Some foreign words (especially from Latin). ? noun + -s

  • e.g.: kilo ? kilos


b) All nouns ending in –o preceded by a vowel. ? noun + -s

  • e.g.: radio ? radios


c) Some nouns ending in –o have two plural forms. ? noun + -s or -es

  • e.g.: volcano ? volcanos or volcanoes


buffalo    ____________________________________

mango      ____________________________________

Exercise 6 A few nouns ending in -f or -fe ? -ves

  • e.g.: calf ? calves


elf        ____________________________________

half       ____________________________________

knife      ____________________________________

leaf       ____________________________________

life       ____________________________________

loaf       ____________________________________

sheaf      ____________________________________

shelf      ____________________________________

thief      ____________________________________

wife       ____________________________________

wolf       ____________________________________

Exercise 7 Many words ending in -f or -fe  ? noun + -s

  • e.g.: cliff ? cliffs


proof      ____________________________________   
 
roof       ____________________________________

Note: Some words have both forms.

  • e.g.: staff ? staffs or staves


Exercise 8 Regular Plurals of Nouns - Gap-fill exercise (External link)

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