Some Proper Stuff about Proper Nouns!

Introduction

What is the difference between the noun “car” and the noun “Rolls Royce”? The word “car” refers to objects all of which share common properties or attributes.

They all have something in common that enables us to define them as “cars”-  four wheels, a vague box-like shape or whatever else goes into giving a “car” its “car-ness”.

The word “Rolls Royce” is the particular name of a type of car. It is as it were that car’s property. It belongs to that specific car or type of car. Hence, we get the idea of a proper noun.

The following table gives examples of the common nouns and proper nouns:

Common noun	Proper noun
man	John, Steve, Thomas, James
woman	Jane, Sarah, Katy
country	England, America, Japan
city	London, Southampton

The Discussion

Proper nouns shimmer with meaning and connotative power. Think of what comes to mind when you say place names like “Mandalay” and “Hiroshima”.

Writers draw upon the connotative power of words, turning them into evocative proper names to function as titles or character names. 

Think also of the thrill you can get when someone says your name, especially if its someone you love.

In the Classroom

The main issue with proper nouns is for students to remember that they need a capital letter at the start.

Titles are proper nouns. In titles, only the main words are capitalized. Prepositions (in, on, at etc) and articles (the, a. an) stay lower unless they are the first word.

Some things you can do to review proper nouns include:

1. Dictate a sentence that includes proper nouns. Students check the punctuation. Have they remembered to capitalize the proper noun?
2. This one is good for a quick bit of retrieval practice. Put a list of nouns and proper nouns on the board. Students should categorise according to whether they are common nouns or proper nouns.

Students could also investigate the use of proper nouns in titles. Of course, any title becomes a proper noun, but to what extent do authors use proper nouns in the title? Students could look at the titles of the books they’re reading.

Lots of Dickens’ novels use names as titles. Why is this? What about YA fiction?

I’ve never investigated this myself so I couldn’t come up with statistics, but my guess would be that 19^th century novels tend to use names in titles, whereas YA fiction tend to draw upon a range of different word-classes.

19^th century novels tended to function as fictional “autobiographies” so using the name of the person in the title would help give this impression. Perhaps YA fiction is more focussed on creating titles that intrigue.

When it comes to creative writing, students should think carefully about the proper nouns that they use to name places or people. Writers draw upon the ways in which words can carry certain suggestive connotations.

For example, in “Lord of the Rings”, the name “Mordor” was only ever going to refer to a place of darkness and evil. When we hear the character names “Cheeryble” and “Gradgrind”, we’ve already got a sense of which one’s going to be a good guy and which one’s going to be a bad guy.

Further Notes

1. In a couple of her poems, Carol Ann Duffy uses a listing of proper nouns for their evocative, incantatory effect.

In the first verse of War Photographer, she sets up a religious atmosphere as if the war photographer is engaged in a sacred task:

“The only light is red and softly glows,
as though this were a church and he
a priest preparing to intone a Mass.”

In the final line, she presents the words he intones: “Belfast. Beirut. Phnom Penh.” Duffy uses these proper nouns because they are the names of iconic war-torn cities. By suggesting that the war photographer is like a priest naming them in “a Mass”, it gives them a sacred force.

              In another poem, called “Prayer”, Duffy ends with a series of place names:

              “Darkness outside. Inside, the radio’s prayer –

              Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisterre.”

These are all names of places in the referred to in the shipping forecast. The poem is about how we can find spiritual comfort in the sounds and words of everyday life. Their recitation is hypnotic and evocative just like words can be in a prayer.

They also create a sense of cosy comfort in listeners familiar with the shipping forecast. Duffy uses the sense of cosy comfort they evoke in listeners familiar with the shipping forecast to create a line that almost functions as a secular liturgy

• Sometimes a proper noun can take on a meaning that goes beyond its specific reference to mean something much broader. In this case, the proper noun refers not directly to the thing itself, but to something closely associated with it.

For example, “10 Downing Street” refers to the address of the prime minister of the United Kingdom. But when a journalist says that “Downing Street has indicated that more measures will be needed”, he is referring to the prime minister and his/her staff or the UK government more broadly.

When a word is used to refer not to thing itself but something closely associated with it, it’s called a metonym. So “10 Downing Street” can be a metonym for the UK government. “The West End” can be a metonym for “the theatre industry” and “Hollywood” can refer to the film industry.

To test your students’ general knowledge, see if they know these metonyms. I’ve put in the proper noun and its literal original meaning. Students now need to match it with the correct metonym.

Proper Noun	Literal/ Original Meaning	Metonym for …
10 Downing Street	The residence of the UK prime minister	The US theatre industry
The West End	An area of London	The UK government
Hollywood	An area of Los Angeles	London police (especially the detective force)
The White House	The residence of the US president	The UK theatre industry
Broadway	An area of New York	The US government
Scotland Yard	The original public entrance to the London Metropolitan Police headquarters	The US film industry

Just in case, here are the answers:

Proper Noun	Literal/ Original Meaning	Metonym for …
10 Downing Street	The residence of the UK prime minister	The UK government
The West End	An area of London	The UK theatre industry
Hollywood	An area of Los Angeles	The US film industry
The White House	The residence of the US president	The US government
Broadway	An area of New York	The US theatre industry
Scotland Yard	The original public entrance to the London Metropolitan Police headquarters	London police