Common and proper nouns | The parts of speech | Grammar | Khan Academy

Hello, Garans!

I'd like to bring up the idea of the difference between a common and a proper noun. The difference between a common and a proper noun is simply the difference between something with a name and a more generic version of that thing. I'll give you a couple of examples right off the bat.

So, speaking generally, I am from a city. The specific city that I'm from is Chicago. I could talk about a frog generally, but if I were speaking of a specific frog, I would say Kermit. The difference between a common and a proper noun is merely the difference between a general thing.

The side is more general, and a specific thing. It's a continuum. So, if you are speaking of, let's see, a river—any old river—that's a common noun. But if you're talking about a specific river, and it's a named river here, that would be the Nile.

Say, you could talk about a mountain, and that would be a common noun because there are many mountains. But if you wanted to talk about a specific mountain, say Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, you would put it—you would—that's a proper noun.

So, here are the proper of proper nouns: proper nouns are always capitalized. That means that instead of using a little letter "a" like that, you would instead use a big letter "A" like that. Common nouns are only capitalized if you find them at the beginning of sentences.

So, you might say "mountains are my favorite," but you would also say "Kilimanjaro is my favorite mountain," and that is a lowercase non-capitalized "m" as opposed to this one which is uppercase.

So, that's the difference between common and proper nouns. If you're talking about something general, it's a common noun. If you're talking about something specific, it's a proper noun. And the difference between them is that you capitalize a proper noun.

You can learn anything, Dave.