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Issue For September 7, 2004

Writing Question of the Week

HELP! I'm a high school student with an assignment on identifying collective nouns in sentences as well as proper and common nouns. Can you help in the identification of collective nouns (singular and plural). The more I sit and think about the sentences, the more confused I get.

Example sentence: The ancient Greeks used the games to salute their god Zeus and to honor their cities. Is 'games' in the above sentence a plural collective noun?

They include competition in music, oratory, and theatre as well as sport. Is competition or sport collective?

If possible, I hope you can respond tonight as my homework is due tomorrow. YIKES!!

Answer

I will try to help you in the following way: give you the definitions of collective, common, and proper nouns + some examples. Then I would like you to rethink your assignment.

1. a collective noun refers to a group acting as a unit, such as a committee, a herd, or a jury ex. My FAMILY (collective noun) is moving to Colorado.

2. a common noun refers to things, objects, fenomena, relationships, animals, activities.... ex. This DOG, PICTURE, PENCIL, SON (common nouns)is mine.

3. A proper noun refers to particular persons, places, peoples and their languages, religions and their followers, mambers of national, political, racial, social, institutions, trademarks, historical documents, days, months, .... ex. SPANISH (proper noun) is a European people.

The definitions come from Muriel Harris' grammar guide Prentice Hall Reference Guide To Grammar and Usage.

I hope this helps, Oana, Writing Lab Tutor

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Last Week's Questions

Question #1: I have helped many people get through the English course at the local community college here, and my question is when you are writing a paper and you say "In our society we do this because, ..." what is a better term or construction than "In our society..."? I know a lot of the English professors don't like students to use that term.--Jayne Schubert

Answers: Students need a "bible". You can specify one. Practically a newspaper style book may do. Common grammar "rules" change or are modified daily. Flexibility and agility are now desirable attributes of English teachers. Example: metaphors. Collect them from various sources and then try to explain them to your students. A rising tide of resentment. A bitter woman.

Question #2: A question about adverbs: Is it, "I don't want him to feel bad", or, "I don't want him to feel badly"?--Dolores Croth

Answers: A number of verbs are not followed by an adverb, but an adjective. These verbs appeal to our senses such as: feel, look, smell, taste, sound. In consequence, the example "I don’t want him to feel bad" is the correct one. Note: All these verbs may be substituted by a form of be.

Examples:

This cake smells good. - This cake IS good.

That sounds really great. - That IS really great.

If, however, "look" is used as a phrasal verb (i.e. followed by a preposition such as: look at, look for, look after), it gets a different meaning and then does take an adverb. Example: He is looking at me angrily. BUT: He looks angry. (He IS angry).

Please note that smell and taste may have meanings that do not refer to our senses. In that case the adverb form is used.

Examples:

Last week I bought a fish which smelled bad. (Sense! It WAS bad). That’s why I always smell fish very carefully.

The tea tasters are tasting the tea most carefully.

--Angelika Weichhart

Question #3: My students and I are wondering if there is a hard-and-fast rule regarding comma usage with mid-sentence place names like in the following example: "The most humid season in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, is spring." Is the second comma necessary? The handbooks I've consulted are either inconsistent or silent on this rule.--Maradee Kern

Answer: The second comma is necessary to mark off the area/state/country etc. Otherwise the sentence would be unclear or practically meaningless. Example:

She has been living in Vienna, Austria, for all her life.

By the way, the same rule applies to descriptive titles such as:

I met Mr. Smith, your teacher, this morning.

Elizabeth II, Queen of Great Britain, delivered a speech this morning.

--Angelika Weichhart

Question #3: My students and I are wondering if there is a hard-and-fast rule regarding comma usage with mid-sentence place names like in the following example: "The most humid season in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, is spring." Is the second comma necessary? The handbooks I've consulted are either inconsistent or silent on this rule.--Maradee Kern

Answers: Hodge's Harbrace Handbook offers the following example: "Nashville, Tennessee, is the largest country and western music center in the United States." As this is not an introductory phrase and functioning the same as your sentence, I would assume the same rule applies. However, I would advise my own students to consider rearranging the sentence to avoid the possibility of awkwardness. For example: "Spring is the most humid season in Baton Rouge, Louisiana."

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