Brighter Grammar 1 - Margaret Macaulay 1987

Lesson Two. Nouns: singular and plural

Look at these pictures.

Here there is only 1 boy, 1 girl, 1 dog.

In the next picture you can see more than one boy, more than one girl, and more than one dog. In fact there are three boys, four girls, and two dogs.

We know the words boy, girl, dog are nouns. Notice the little change in a noun when we mean ’more than one’:

What is the difference? Nouns that mean ’only one’ are singular. Nouns that mean ’more than one’ are plural.

With most of the nouns in English we make the plural by adding s to the singular.

Exercises

A Fill the space with the plural noun.

Example: One boy. Three ... .

Answer: Three boys.

1 A horse. Two ... .

2 One dog. Three ... .

3 A car. Some ... .

4 A big tree. Some big ... .

5 One day. Seven ... .

6 A shop. Some ... .

7 The chemist. All the ... .

8 A bottle. Several ... .

9 An eye. Two ... .

10 One nose. A lot of ... .

В Fill the space with the singular form of the noun.

Example: Two boys. One ... .

Answer: One boy.

1 Some houses. A ... .

2 Some ideas. An ... .

3 Nasty smells. A nasty ... .

4 A lot of fools. One_ ... .

5 Ten nouns. A ... .

6 Ten spaces. One ... .

7 Three animals. An ... .

8 Two names. A ... .

9 Things. A ... .

10 Five teachers. Only one ... .

C How do we generally make English singular nouns into plural nouns?

D Make two columns, singular and plural.

Now write in the singular column, all the nouns in these sentences that mean ’only one’, and write in the plural column the nouns that mean ’more than one*. We have filled in number 1 for you.

1 The hen has twelve chickens.

2 The chemist had a lot of bottles in his shop.

3 The boys are playing in the field.

4 My books are in my bag.

5 I have four fingers and one thumb on each hand.

6 There are pictures on the walls of this room.

7 The birds are singing in the trees.

8 The teacher gave us some lessons in grammar.

9 There is an apple on this plate.

10 How many windows are there in this room?

11 The referee blows his whistle and the players stop.

12 Open your books and read the sentences on page ten.

13 There are a lot of nuts on that tree.

14 The sparrow is a small bird.

15 Cats and dogs sometimes fight.

16 The elephant is a very big animal.

17 The man said his wife had a headache.

18 Tears came into his eyes.

E Complete the following sentences with singular nouns.

1 The ... kicked the ... .

2 Give me your_ ... .

3 I like this ... .

4 My ... is on the ...

5 The ... writes on the ... .

6 There is a ... on the ... .

7 The ... is playing with the ... .

8 I have a ... in my ... .

9 He goes to the every … .

10 The ... is a very big ... .

F Complete the following sentences with plural nouns.

1 The ... are playing with the ... .

2 How many ... have you got?

3 There are three ... on the ... .

4 … are putting ... in the van.

5 The engine has six ... .

6 There are ... and ... on the plate.

7 My brother has twelve ... .

8 Open your ... and read the ... on page ten.

9 In the zoo I saw ... and ... .

10 The ... are singing in the ... .