Nouns: Material and Collective Nouns

Last posts we had already known about concept of nouns, do you still remember? Well, to refresh your mind A noun is a word for a person, place, or thing. (You might like to think of nouns as naming words.) Everything we can see or talk about is represented by a word which names it. That "naming word" is called a noun.And also we already know about proper and common nouns.

In this post, we will discuss about kind of nouns : Material and Collective nouns. Both of them together with proper and common nouns are including in Concrete Nouns:

3.Material Nouns

Material nouns are names of a material or a substance or an ingredient of an alloy.Usually the words or things are from nature. Examples : gold, silver, wood, cotton, calcium, diamond, plastic, iron etc.Let's see the table below:

Few of the Material Nouns	Few of the Natural Gifts :
Gold Salt Iron Silver Bronze Brass Copper Steel Aluminium Lead Gem Diamond Coral Coal Calcium Plastic Rubber Glass Fibre Paper Paint Plywood Synthetics Cement Shampoo Wine Soap Tar Perfume Chemical Rexene	Lake Islands Planets Granite Hills Star Clouds Plants Tree Forest Rain Moon Soil Mountain Salt Peak Pond River Water Falls Milk Stream Honey Beach Wheat Sea Paddy Sky Fruits Sun Vegetables Greens Flowers Air Wood Jute Cotton Clay Stone Bamboo Leather Wool Hair Petrol Diesel Oil Ocean Wave Cyclone

Examples:

• Iron is very useful metal.
• This is a building of marbles.
• The child drank the milk.

2.Collective Nouns

Collective nouns, a special class, name groups (things) composed of members (usually people). Check out the chart below:

army audience board cabinet class committee company corporation

council department faculty family firm group jury majority

minority navy public school senate society team troupe

In sentences, collective nouns can be either singular or plural, depending on context. In writing, this double status often causes agreement errors. How do you tell if a collective noun is singular or plural? What verbs and pronouns do you use with the collective noun?Let's check the examples below :

Collective nouns as plural in sentences

• After the three-hour practice under the brutal sun, the team shower, change into their street clothes, and head to their air-conditioned homes.
• After the long exam, the class start their research papers on famous mathematicians.
• The jury disagree about the guilt of the accused and have told the judge that they are hopelessly deadlocked.

Collective nouns as singular in sentences

• My team wins the match
• The herd is following the sheperd
• That company hires for a supervisor

NOTE:

Whenever you cannot decide if a collective noun is singular or plural, exercise your options as a writer. You have two ways that you can compose the sentence without causing an agreement error:

• insert the word members after the collective noun (jury members, committee members, board members)
• or use an entirely different word (players instead of team, students instead of class, soldiers instead of army)

Then you can use plural verbs and pronouns without worrying about making mistakes or sounding unnatural.