(1) By the Use of a Different Word.-The most important nouns belonging under this head are,-

(2) By a Prefix. -The words belonging to this class are compounds. The two parts are usually separated

(3) By a Suffix.-Notice that in many of these words the suffix is added to the masculine form in a more or less irregular way:

NOTE. Of feminine endings, ess is the only living suffix in English, and it is less used than formerly. The words author, doctor, poet, and even actor may be used of both sexes.

EXERCISES
I

Tell the gender of these words and refer to each by the appropriate pronoun:

Name and illustrate the three ways of indicating gender.

III

Point out the examples of personification in the following selections, and explain the italicized pro

nouns:

1. Yet Hope had never lost her youth;

She did but look through dimmer eyes;
Or Love but played with gracious lies,
Because he felt so fixed in truth.

TENNYSON: In Memoriam

2. The river was swollen with the long rains. From Vadencourt all the way to Origny it ran with ever-quickening speed, taking fresh heart at each mile, and racing as though it already smelt the sea.

STEVENSON: An Inland Voyage

3. And the poor little bell, glittering like a jewel in the sunshine, tinkled faintly and mournfully at every jar and jerk of the cord as though it knew that its end had come.

GRAS: The Reds of the Midi

4. Fair Science frowned not on his humble birth,
And Melancholy marked him for her own.

GRAY: Elegy in a Country Churchyard

II-NUMBER

108. The Two Kinds of Number.

Compare carefully the following sentences:

1. This boy knows his lesson.

2. These boys know their lessons.
3. That dog killed a sheep.

4. Those dogs killed ten sheep.

The repeated words in these sentences differ only in number. The words in sentences 1 and 3 are in the singular number; those in 2 and 4 are in the plural number. Notice that "killed" and "sheep" in sentence 4, though plural in function, do not indicate their number by any change of form.*

*And yet grammarians continue to define number as "a difference in the form of a word to distinguish objects as one or more than one."

109. Number is that function of a word by which, with or without change of form, it stands for one or more than

one.

110. A word denoting one is Singular, or in the Singular Number.

111. A word denoting more than one is Plural, or in the Plural Number.

112. Plural Suffixes.

Nouns form their plurals by the addition of s or es to the singular. Exceptions are found in a few words that retain their Old English plurals, and in a large number of foreign words that have been adopted from other languages.

113. Practical Tests of Number.

When in doubt about the number of a given word, do not try to recall a rule of grammar; the ear is a better test than the memory. If you can use that, this, is, or has with the word, it is singular; if it sounds better to use those, these, are, or have, the word is plural. Such tests show us, for example, that news is singular, tidings plural, and means singular or plural.

NOTE.-A curious thing about collective nouns in the singular is that we may use are or have with them, but not these or those; as, "The army have abandoned their position." But we cannot say These army or Those army. This is because army is singular in form, but plural in function. That and this change in accordance with form, is and has in ac

cordance with function. Kipling, in Wee Willie Winkie, says, "That regiment are devils."

114. Plurals in "s."

The regular ending for the plural is s:

hand, hands; dog, dogs; tree, trces; day, days; chief, chiefs; house, houses; judge, judges; refusal, refusals; complication, complications.

Nouns ending in o cannot be reduced to a fixed rule; but when o is preceded by a vowel, the regular ending s (not es) is added:

bamboo, bamboos; cuckoo, cuckoos; Hindoo, Hindoos; cameo, cameos; portfolio, portfolios; embryo, embryos; curio, curios.

Nouns ending in fe change f to v before adding s: wife, wives; knife, knives; life, lives.

115. Plurals in "es."

When s does not blend easily with the singular, es is added:

church, churches; box, boxes; bench, benches; grass, grasses; bush, bushes.

When a noun ends in y preceded by a consonant, the plural takes the form ies:*

city, cities; duty, duties; fly, flies; mutiny, mutinies; army, armies; colloquy (-kwy), colloquies.

*This is because these words once had ie in the singular: citie, dutie, etc. The plural was then formed by adding s: cities, duties. We have kept the old plural but changed the old singular.