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- [Voiceover] Hello, grammarians.

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I'd like to bring up the
idea of the difference

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between a common and a proper noun.

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So the difference between a common

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and a proper noun is simply

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the difference between
something with a name

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and a more generic version of that thing.

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I'll give you a couple of
examples right off the bat.

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So speaking generally, I am from a city.

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The specific city that
I'm from is Chicago.

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I could talk about a frog generally,

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but if I were speaking of a specific frog,

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I would say Kermit.

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The difference between a
common and a proper noun

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is merely the difference
between a general thing,

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so this side is more general,

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and a specific thing.

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It's a continuum.

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So if you are speaking
of, let's see, a river,

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any old river, that's a common noun,

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but if you're talking
about a specific river,

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and it's a named river here,

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that would be the Nile, say.

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You could talk about a mountain,

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and that would be a common noun,

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because there are many mountains,

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but if you wanted to talk
about a specific mountain,

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say Mount Kilimanjaro,

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in Tanzania,

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that's a proper noun.

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So here are the properties
of proper nouns.

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Proper nouns are always capitalized.

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And that means that instead of using

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a little letter A like that,

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you would instead use a
big letter A like that.

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Common nouns are only capitalized

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if you find them at the
beginning of sentences.

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So you might say,

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"Mountains are my favorite."

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But you would also say, "Kilimanjaro

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"is my favorite

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"mountain."

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And that is a lowercase,
non-capitalized M,

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as opposed to this one,
which is uppercase.

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So that's the difference between common

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and proper nouns.

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If you're talking about something general,

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it's a common noun.

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If you're talking about
something specific,

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it's a proper noun,

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and the difference between them is

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that you capitalize a proper noun.

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You can learn anything.

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David out.