Real Grammar - Susan Conrad, Douglas Biber 2009

The Nouns People and Thing
Unit 19 That’s an important thing to know

What have you learned from your grammar textbook?

Nouns can be count nouns (e.g., girl-girls) or noncount nouns (e.g., sugar), and some count nouns have irregular plurals (e.g., man-men, tooth-teeth).

Nouns and pronouns are related parts of speech. Pronouns can be used in place of a noun:

• I’m going to Virginia to see my sister. She's been in the hospital.

What does the corpus show?

A

In academic writing, nouns are by far the most common part of speech. No individual noun is especially common. Rather, an author will use different nouns depending on the subject matter of the text.

B

In conversation, nouns are much less frequent. In fact, there are more pronouns than nouns in conversation.

Nicki: Well I would like to start tomorrow morning at eight o’clock.

Sally: OK.

Nicki: It’s probably gonna be a pretty grueling day.

Jack: I would expect so ... I want to get started right now.

Nicki: Well we can talk about that then. Um let me ask ... See, some of us have read some of the material and some of us haven’t.

People in conversation use pronouns instead of nouns because they are familiar with each other’s friends and normal activities.

C

Although nouns are generally rare in conversation, two individual nouns are especially common: people and thing. The use of these two simple nouns is more complicated than you might guess.

D

The plural noun people is the most common noun in conversation. The noun people usually does NOT refer to a specific set of persons. Rather, we use people when we mean “everyone,” especially when we make a general statement about life:

• People are always saying you have to go to college.

• Lots of people have done it wrong.

E

The singular noun thing is almost as frequent as people in conversation. The plural noun things is less common and is used for imprecise reference (see Unit 20). Thing can refer to a physical object, but that meaning is rare. Rather, thing has several special functions in conversation:

Activities

1 Notice in context: Read the two conversations. Circle each instance of people and each instance of thing.

1. Telling a story about a trip to the museum.

Ellen: We were waiting in line forever, and this girl jumped over the rope in line by these tourists in front of us and said, “Oh, I’m with them. I’m their tour guide.”

Andy: That’s so rude! People really make me mad sometimes.

2. Talking about plans for an outdoor concert to raise money for cancer research.

Jack: Did you talk to Bob yesterday about the fundraiser he’s putting on?

Dana: The only thing I said to Bob is that we are totally behind you. There’s free food, too.

Nate: Really? That’s the one nice thing about it.

Jack: Uh, I’ll be out of town; I’ll miss the whole thing.

Nate: Oh, but the thing is, it’s like ten degrees. Way too cold!

2 Analyze discourse: Look back at the conversations in Activity 1. write what each circled word refers to in the margin. Use one of the labels below. Draw an arrow between the word and the label.

a. everyone

b. event I activity

c. speech I communication

d. general situation

e. important point

3 Practice conversation: These dialogues don't sound very natural. Replace the boldfaced nouns or noun phrases with people or thing to make the dialogues sound more natural. You will usually need to include modifiers with thing. When you are finished, practice these dialogues with a partner.

1. Paul: When individuals get married and have families, people money does become more important.

Brad: But it’s not the factor that is most important.

2. Jeff: The result we do not want is to irritate our boss ... with too many questions.

Dan: Yeah, I was thinking the identical thought, but ... how else do we know what he wants us to do?

Jeff: I have no idea.

3. PAM: See, that’s the single behavior I don’t understand.

Jim: What’s that?

Pam: Why do drivers in general need to take up the whole road? Why can’t they just let other drivers pass?

4 Practice conversation: Answer the questions using people or thing in your responses, write at least two responses for each question.

1. What thoughts or beliefs are common in your city or country?

Lots of people believe that thirteen is an unlucky number.

2. What do you do before you go to bed every night?

3. What characteristics make a good co-worker or classmate?