Proper Noun

 2. PROPER NOUNS

The word proper' has been derived from the Latin word 'Propriu', which means 'Own; belonging to one; one's own; individual.

 Example

• "His proper good" [i. e., his own possessions]. (Chaucer) 

• "My proper son". (Shakespeare) So Proper Noun is one's own name, not shared with any of its class. It is a proper name of anything. Proper Noun names a specific and unique person, place, thing or idea or anything peculiar or particular and is not common. Proper Noun is not normally preceded by an article or other limiting modifier, as any or some, and that is arbitrarily used to denote a particular person, place, or thing without regard to any descriptive meaning the word or phrase may have, as Wordsworth,Shakespeare, Greece, Oxford. It is also called 'proper name' and is usually capitalized in English.

Example

• "I've got something for the girls of Savannah, and all of America, and all the world, and we're going to start it tonight." (Juliette G. Low, founder of the Girl Scouts of America) 

• "Yesterday, December 7, 1941--a date which will live on in infamy--the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan." (President Franklin D. Roosevelt) 

• "I know not with what weapons World War II will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones." (Albert Einstein) 

• "Nothing is wrong with California that a rise in the ocean level wouldn't cure." (Ross MacDonald)

• "George Bush taking credit for the Berlin Wall coming down is like the rooster taking credit for the sunrise." (Al Gore) In the above sentences, the highlighted words are Proper Nouns.

Other Examples

• Khartoum, The Alps, Suez Canal, North America, Lahore, Karachi, Minar-e-Pakistan Note: Some common nouns become proper nouns when they are used to name a particular thing. Words like war, nation, sea, revolution, university, organisation, sons are all common nouns but they become proper nouns in the following names:

• Prophet of God.

• League of Nations

• Red Sea 

• French Revolution 

• University of Engineering and Technology

• World War I