Singular, Plural, and Possessive Nouns

The word noun means a person, place, or thing. 

A common noun is a general word.

A proper noun is a name.

	Person	Place	Thing
Common Noun	woman	city	car
	manager	supermarket	soup
Proper Noun	Diane	Avondale	Porsche
	Mr. Smith	Food City	Campbell’s Soup

Common nouns can be singular or plural. 

To make most nouns plural, an “s” is added.  These are regular plural forms. 

Some common nouns have irregular plural forms.  These do not end in “s”. 

Singular	Plural	Irregular Plural
car	cars
manager	managers
city	cities*
knife	knives**
dish	dishes***
woman		women
child		children
person		people
mouse		mice

You sometimes need to change the spelling when you add “s”. 

*If a word ends in a consonant and “y”, change the “y” to “ie”, then add “s”

**If a word ends in “f” or “fe”, change the “f” to “v”.

***If a word ends in “sh”, “ch”, “x”, or “s”, add “es”

Note:  Some common nouns are considered uncountable, and they are rarely used in the plural form.  This group includes words such as water, sugar, and air.