sentence with essay as a noun

How to Use essay in a Sentence

The book is a collection of his previously unpublished essays on a variety of topics.
Your assignment is to write a 500-word essay on one of Shakespeare's sonnets.
There is no hint as to which of the approaches essayed in this book will prove most useful.

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'essay.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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110+ Examples of nouns Sentences in English

Examples of nouns sentences.

Nouns are a part of speech in the English language used to name people, places, things, ideas, and concepts. They are used to identify and describe objects, people, places, animals, and other things. For example, “apple”, “chair”, “table”, “house”, “dog”, “teacher”, “city”, and “idea” are all examples of nouns.

In a sentence, a noun can be used as the subject, object, or complement of a verb, as well as in apposition to another noun. Nouns can also be modified by adjectives, and they can be pluralized or possessive. Overall, nouns are an essential component of language, as they allow us to communicate effectively and convey meaning about the world around us.

Here are 110+ sentences with nouns in them:

The dog barked loudly.
My sister is a doctor.
The sun is shining brightly.
The cat caught a mouse.
I love to eat pizza.
The book on the table is mine.
The car drove down the road.
The tree is very tall.
The water in the lake is cold.
The boy rode his bike to school.
The teacher gave us homework.
The airplane flew high in the sky.
The flowers in the garden are beautiful.
The movie was really good.
The computer is not working.
The child played with his toy.
The music was loud.
The sky is blue.
The girl danced in the rain.
The phone rang loudly.
The man walked his dog.
The chair is comfortable.
The coffee is hot.
The sandwich tasted delicious.
The baby slept peacefully.
The pen is mightier than the sword.
The room is very clean.
The bus arrived late.
The television is broken.
The beach is crowded.
The medicine helped to heal the pain.
The basketball game was exciting.
The town is small.
The painting is beautiful.
The mountain is high.
The city is busy.
The clock is ticking.
The museum is full of art.
The ocean is vast.
The garden is full of vegetables.
The plate is empty.
The door is open.
The train is fast.
The rain is pouring down.
The dress is pretty.
The fish in the pond are colorful.
The soccer ball is round.
The noise was loud.
The blanket is warm.
The ice cream tasted sweet.
The light is bright.
The jacket is warm.
The river is calm.
The movie theater is dark.
The coffee shop is cozy.
The dog park is fun.
The bridge is long.
The ship is huge.
The store is open.
The moon is full.
The carpet is soft.
The road is busy.
The lawnmower is loud.
The picture is colorful.
The camera takes great pictures.
The newspaper is informative.
The baby’s first word was “mama”.
The plane landed safely.
The bed is comfortable.
The game was exciting.
The flower is fragrant.
The food in the restaurant is delicious.
The drink is cold.
The building is tall.
The statue is impressive.
The fountain is beautiful.
The flag is waving in the wind.
The restaurant is crowded.
The museum is educational.
The park is peaceful.
The zoo is entertaining.
The college is prestigious.
The business is successful.
The car is fast.
The letter is important.
The document is confidential.
The television show is funny.
The concert is sold out.
The amusement park is thrilling.
The pet store is busy.
The bookshelf is full.
The cat napped on the couch.
The sunset is beautiful.
The sunrise is breathtaking.
The snow is cold.
The raincoat is waterproof.
The golf course is challenging.
The library is quiet.
The art museum is impressive.
The hospital is busy.
The beach ball is colorful.
The computer game is addictive.
The fire is dangerous.
The pool is refreshing.
The snowman is melting.
The traffic is heavy.
The piano is beautiful.
The violinist played a beautiful melody.
The astronaut went to space.
The circus was entertaining.

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Definition of essay noun from the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary

I have to write an essay this weekend.
essay on something an essay on the causes of the First World War
essay about somebody/something Have you done your essay about Napoleon yet?
in an essay He made some very good points in his essay.
Essays handed in late will not be accepted.
Have you done your essay yet?
He concludes the essay by calling for a corrective.
I finished my essay about 10 o'clock last night!
Lunch was the only time she could finish her essay assignment.
We have to write an essay on the environment.
You have to answer 3 out of 8 essay questions in the exam.
the teenage winner of an essay contest
We have to write an essay on the causes of the First World War.
be entitled something
be titled something
address something
in an/the essay
essay about

Want to learn more?

Find out which words work together and produce more natural-sounding English with the Oxford Collocations Dictionary app. Try it for free as part of the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary app.

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Grammar: Sentence Structure and Types of Sentences

Definitions and examples of basic sentence elements.

The Mastering the Mechanics webinar series also describes required sentence elements and varying sentence types. Please see these archived webinars for more information.

Key: Yellow, bold = subject; green underline = verb, blue, italics = object, pink, regular font = prepositional phrase

Independent clause : An independent clause can stand alone as a sentence. It contains a subject and a verb and is a complete idea.

I like spaghetti .
He reads many books .

Dependent clause : A dependent clause is not a complete sentence. It must be attached to an independent clause to become complete. This is also known as a subordinate clause.

Although I like spaghetti,…
Because he reads many books,…

Subject : A person, animal, place, thing, or concept that does an action. Determine the subject in a sentence by asking the question “Who or what?”

I like spaghetti.
He reads many books.

Verb : Expresses what the person, animal, place, thing, or concept does. Determine the verb in a sentence by asking the question “What was the action or what happened?”

The movie is good. (The be verb is also sometimes referred to as a copula or a linking verb. It links the subject, in this case "the movie," to the complement or the predicate of the sentence, in this case, "good.")

Object : A person, animal, place, thing, or concept that receives the action. Determine the object in a sentence by asking the question “The subject did what?” or “To whom?/For whom?”

Prepositional Phrase : A phrase that begins with a preposition (i.e., in, at for, behind, until, after, of, during) and modifies a word in the sentence. A prepositional phrase answers one of many questions. Here are a few examples: “Where? When? In what way?”

I like spaghetti for dinner .
He reads many books in the library .

English Sentence Structure

The following statements are true about sentences in English:

H e obtained his degree.
He obtained his degree .
Smith he obtained his degree.
He obtained his degree.
He (subject) obtained (verb) his degree (object).

Simple Sentences

A simple sentence contains a subject and a verb, and it may also have an object and modifiers. However, it contains only one independent clause.

Key: Yellow, bold = subject; green underline = verb, blue, italics = object, pink, regular font =prepositional phrase

Here are a few examples:

She wrote .
She completed her literature review .
He organized his sources by theme .
They studied APA rules for many hours .

Compound Sentences

A compound sentence contains at least two independent clauses. These two independent clauses can be combined with a comma and a coordinating conjunction or with a semicolon .

Key: independent clause = yellow, bold ; comma or semicolon = pink, regular font ; coordinating conjunction = green, underlined

She completed her literature review , and she created her reference list .
He organized his sources by theme ; then, he updated his reference list .
They studied APA rules for many hours , but they realized there was still much to learn .

Using some compound sentences in writing allows for more sentence variety .

Complex Sentences

A complex sentence contains at least one independent clause and at least one dependent clause. Dependent clauses can refer to the subject (who, which) the sequence/time (since, while), or the causal elements (because, if) of the independent clause.

If a sentence begins with a dependent clause, note the comma after this clause. If, on the other hand, the sentence begins with an independent clause, there is not a comma separating the two clauses.

Key: independent clause = yellow, bold ; comma = pink, regular font ; dependent clause = blue, italics

Note the comma in this sentence because it begins with a dependent clause.
Note that there is no comma in this sentence because it begins with an independent clause.
Using some complex sentences in writing allows for more sentence variety .

Compound-Complex Sentences

Sentence types can also be combined. A compound-complex sentence contains at least two independent clauses and at least one dependent clause.

Key: independent clause = yellow, bold ; comma or semicolon = pink, regular font ; coordinating conjunction = green, underlined ; dependent clause = blue, italics

She completed her literature review , but she still needs to work on her methods section even though she finished her methods course last semester .
Although he organized his sources by theme , he decided to arrange them chronologically , and he carefully followed the MEAL plan for organization .
T hey studied APA rules for many hours , and they decided that writing in APA made sense because it was clear, concise, and objective .
Using some complex-compound sentences in writing allows for more sentence variety .
Pay close attention to comma usage in complex-compound sentences so that the reader is easily able to follow the intended meaning.

Sentence Structure Video Playlist

Note that these videos were created while APA 6 was the style guide edition in use. There may be some examples of writing that have not been updated to APA 7 guidelines.

Structuring Sentences: Types of Sentences (video transcript)
Structuring Sentences: Simple Sentences (video transcript)
Structuring Sentences: Compound Sentences (video transcript)
Structuring Sentences: Complex Sentences (video transcript)
Structuring Sentences: Combining Sentences (video transcript)
Common Error: Unclear Subjects (video transcript)
Mastering the Mechanics: Punctuation as Symbols (video transcript)
Mastering the Mechanics: Commas (video transcript)
Mastering the Mechanics: Periods (video transcript)
Mastering the Mechanics: Semicolons (video transcript)

Related Resources

Knowledge Check: Sentence Structure and Types of Sentences

Didn't find what you need? Email us at [email protected] .

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Course: Grammar > Unit 1

Introduction to nouns
Identifying nouns
Introduction to singular and plural nouns
Singular and plural nouns

Home / Guides / Grammar Guides / Nouns: What’s in a Name?

Nouns: What’s in a Name?

With a name that means, literally, ‘to name’, it’s pretty impossible to imagine the English language—or any language—without the noun. But while we use them constantly to provide clarity and identify the things that we’re talking or writing about, this hugely essential word type still has some surprises up its sleeve. This guide should give you a deeper understanding of this seemingly simple element of language, and allow you to use them correctly in your work. You can also check out this useful reference to consolidate your learning. If you’re currently working on a paper and would find a quick and easy grammar check useful, upload your essay for free at EasyBib.com. You can also use our fantastic citation tool to help cite your sources using popular styles such as MLA and APA format .

Guide Overview

What is a noun?
Controversy and crossover
Where the magic happens
Phrase or clause?
Types of nouns list
Can you count it?
Good and proper
Getting possessive
A blessing of unicorns
Friendly compounds
The pronoun takeover
Grammar help is here!

What is a Noun?

At first glance, the noun definition is fairly straightforward—they’re naming words used to refer to a person, place, thing or idea. They’re arguably the most important element of any sentence, as they’ll usually be its subject. They can also be the direct object of a sentence. Or the indirect object. Or the object of the preposition . And they can do much more besides that. So you get the idea that we’d find it very difficult to communicate without these superstars of the grammar world!

Controversy and Crossover

As they’re so important, the question ‘what is a noun?’ has been debated and discussed at length by linguists and grammar experts, often sparking some disagreement about the definition. Some feel that to define them as “naming words” is far too simplistic, as they’re also used to reference abstract and intangible concepts, feelings and activities such as birth, sport, joy, cookery and technology . There’s also huge crossover with other elements of language. For example: Rain

Verb — to rain
Name of weather type — rain
Adjective — red
Name of color — red
As an adverb — angrily
As an adjective — angry
Name of a feeling — anger

Because this single word type encompasses so many different things, some linguists feel that the definition should be narrowed. However, for now, we’re happy to stick with the generalization that it’s a naming word. For more on the various definitions of different parts of the English language, check out this useful link .

Where the Magic Happens

Although it can lead to confusion, the fact the noun is multi-functional is part of its charm. Let’s take a look at some of the jobs that these hard-working words can perform in a sentence. Subject: the subject of the sentence, i.e., someone or something performing the action of the verb .

Example: Harry is angry.

Direct object: the direct object of the sentence, i.e., someone or something who receives the action of the verb.

Example: Ashley baked Noah a cake.

Object of the preposition: the object of the prepositional phrase.

Example: Ashley baked a cake on Sunday .

Subject complement: follows a linking verb.

Example: Ashley is a teacher .

Object complement: follows a direct object to rename or modify it.

Example: She named her dog Benji .

Appositive: immediately follows another to add more information.

Example: Her dog, Benji , is black.

Modifier: acts as an adjective to modify another noun.

Example: A black dog.

Phrase or Clause?

In addition to your run of the mill single naming words, you can also use a noun clause or phrase to name or identify a person, object, thing, place or idea. A phrase has a naming word as its head word but may also include other kinds of words. For example:

Head word — car/cars
Determiner — My car
Determiner and adjective — My red car
Quantifier — Some cars
Quantifier and adjective — Some red cars
In a sentence — My red car is very old. ( My red car is the phrase that identifies which car we are talking about.)

Caution! Don’t confuse a phrase with a compound, i.e., two or more words together to create a stand-alone common or proper noun with a meaning of its own (more on compounds later!). A clause is a dependent clause (doesn’t make sense alone) that performs the naming function in a sentence. It usually contains a subject and a verb, but may not necessarily contain a naming word. For example:

This weekend we can do whatever you want .

Types of Nouns List

There are multiple types of naming words to get a grip on, and plenty of crossovers between categories too—just to keep things interesting! For example:

You can have a mass, abstract, common name.
Or a singular, concrete, proper, compound, or possessive name (phew!).

Don’t worry! This should become clearer as we work through the different categories in turn. If you’d like to do some more in-depth reading on the subject, you can find more info online.

Singular or Plural

You can have singular or plural nouns, with regulars keeping things nice and simple with the addition of s or es .

Car — cars
Book – books
Zoo — zoos
Box — boxes
Dish — dishes
Hero — heroes

However, there are lots of rule-breaking irregulars thrown into the mix to complicate matters.

Man — men
Person — people
Sheep — sheep
Elf — elves
Fish — fish
City — cities

Concrete vs Abstract

As noted earlier, these debate-sparking naming words can be difficult things to define. So it can help to think of them as either concrete or abstract. Concrete nouns are the simpler of the two. They’re tangible things that can be detected by the senses. For example:

You can touch, see and smell a flower .
You can hold a pencil .
You can see your friend Emily .

Abstract nouns are far trickier to pin down—both literally and metaphorically speaking!

You can’t hold anger or space or childhood .

However, some people might argue that you can identify some abstracts with your senses. For example:

You can see an expression of anger .
You can sense fresh air .

So it might be more helpful to think of them as something that you can’t physically hold, i.e., concepts, ideas, experiences, qualities and feelings.

Can You Count It?

Naming words can either be count or noncount . Count type doesn’t tend to give you much trouble—they’re, as the name suggests, something that can be counted. Noncount type (also known as mass nouns), however, are a whole different ball game! These rebellious words are definitely the evil twin of the two, as they defy several of the usual rules of grammar and, if you’re not careful, can cause chaos and confusion. Count: something that can be counted, e.g., books, people, cars. Simple! Noncount (Mass): something that can’t be counted (often because it’s an abstract concept), e.g., air, red, peace. Or an aggregation of people or things that are lumped together as a whole, like luggage, information, or salt. Not quite so simple! Caution! Be careful not to confuse noncounts with collectives, words which are used to name a collection of people or things (e.g., group, herd, bundle ). An easy way to test whether a word is noncount or collective is:

Noncounts don’t follow indefinite articles ( a and an ).
Noncounts don’t usually have a plural form.

For example, you don’t have a luggage or luggages .

An Awkward Bunch

Despite the fact that they often represent an aggregation of people or things, noncounts can be a rather anti-social and awkward word type! They like to stand alone, without an indefinite article:

Music can help you relax.

Not ‘ a music can help you relax.’

I sprinkled salt on my food.

Not ‘I sprinkled a salt on my food.’ However, they can sit nicely with a determiner or quantifier instead.

Determiner — The music was loud.
Quantifier — I sprinkled some salt on my food.

In fact, some quantifiers only work with noncounts. For example:

A little salt
Not much information
A bit of music

However, we would never say:

A little books
Not much cars
A bit of flowers

The Singular or Plural Conundrum

Another quirk of the noncount is that, even when it represents an aggregation or group of things, it can still count as singular for grammatical purposes. For example:

The luggage is heavy. It filled the trunk of the car. This information is useful. It has helped me with my paper.

Even if a noncount appears to take a plural form with an s on the end, don’t be fooled! It may still be classed as grammatically singular. For example:

Politics is a difficult subject to study. I find it hard to grasp. The news is on at 10 pm. It’s on for an hour.

On the flip side, some noncounts are grammatically plural. For example:

My clothes are wet. The scissors are sharp. His manners were fantastic.

However, these go against the grain of plurals by not mixing well with numbers—we never say five clothes or six scissors!

Enumerating a Noncount

These awkward noncounts on the whole don’t mix well with numbers, although there are sneaky tactics that you can sometimes employ to enumerate them. These include:

Grammatically plural — if concrete, add a pair of , e.g., a pair of scissors .
Grammatically singular — if concrete, add a piece of , e.g., a piece of cutlery .
Singular and plural — both concrete and abstract noncounts can be enumerated by adding an indefinite adjective (quantifier), e.g., any, some, less, much .

For example:

Pass me some cutlery .
I don’t have any scissors .
It contains more information .

Fewer vs Less

A quick note on fewer versus less as these are indefinite adjectives (quantifiers) that often trip people up!

Fewer — used for count type, e.g., I have fewer books than Sarah.
Less — used for non-count type, e.g., I have less money than Sarah.

Good and Proper

A proper noun is used to name very specific people, places, things and ideas. As their ‘proper’ title suggests, they’re formal names and, as such, deserve capitalization. Examples include:

People — Sarah, Jack, Mrs. Smith, Prince George, Father Brown, Beethoven
Specific places — America, Europe, Paris, George Street, Roman Empire, Times Square
Natural and man-made landmarks — River Nile, Central Park, Eiffel Tower, Empire State Building, Mount Etna
Religions and related words — Christianity, The Bible, God, Allah, Buddhism
Races and nationalities — African American, Russian, White, Eskimo, Japanese
Languages — French, Spanish, Chinese, English
Periods in history — Stone Age, Middle Ages
Events — Olympic Games, Coachella, Wimbledon, Rio Carnaval, Oktoberfest
Days, months and holidays — Sunday, Friday, June, October, Thanksgiving, Memorial Day (note that the seasons are, somewhat contentiously, classed as common)
Organizations, charities and businesses — New York Police Department (NYPD), Harvard University, Microsoft, Red Cross, Walmart, Forbes
Product brand names — Tresemme, Adidas, Apple, Coca-Cola
Well-known documents and acts — Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights, Magna Carta, Slavery Abolition Act 1833
Names of specific things and works — Hope Diamond, Mona Lisa, Symphony No. 5, Star Wars, War and Peace
Titles of publications and courses — The Washington Post, Introduction to Computer Science
They can be singular — Sally, Australia, Picasso, iPad
Or plural — the Smiths, the Rockies, the Americas, two iPads

From Proper to Common

Sometimes, they bend the rules to put themselves into a ‘common’ context. For example:

I made a mistake of Titanic proportions.

This is taken to mean a big mistake and isn’t literally referencing the Titanic ship.

I’m an Einstein when it comes to science.

Here Einstein is taken to mean a person who is smart, rather than referencing the man himself specifically. Similarly, over time, some have developed common ‘spin-off’ words. For example:

Famous porcelain from China — a china cup (note, not a China cup)
Coca-Cola — coke (to describe a generic cola drink, not necessarily the Coca-Cola brand)

The Humble Common Noun

Common nouns give a name to a general type of person, thing, object, place, concept or feeling. They’re not ‘formal’ names and, as such, they don’t demand capitalization. Examples include:

People — man, woman, girl, boy, vicar, teacher, children
Places — city, beach, library, street, garden
Things — tiger, leg, sleep, beard
Objects — watch, cake, shoe, ball
Concepts — peace, justice, talent, religion
Feelings — anger, joy, love, envy

In many cases, both a common and proper noun can be applied to the same thing. For example:

A Baby Ruth (proper) is a chocolate bar (common).
Rihanna (proper) is a popular singer (common) in the US.
Mrs. Smith (proper) is a teacher (common).
Benji (proper) is a dog (common).
The Nile (proper) is a river (common).

Of course, you can define proper noun words as having a far narrower application as they can only apply to one very specific thing. Common noun examples have a much wider application—hence their label as ‘common’! For example:

There are thousands of singers (common) in the world, but there’s only one Taylor Swift (proper).

When a Commoner Becomes Proper

Occasionally, a commoner can move up the ranks to become proper—gaining that all-important capitalization along the way. This usually happens when a word becomes synonymous over time with a very specific type of thing. For example, a parka jacket depicts a type of long, all-weather coat. But you could argue that the term Parka is so synonymous with a very specific type of jacket that it should be classed as proper. This is definitely one for the grammar experts to slog out between themselves!

Getting Possessive

Possessive nouns are usually followed by another naming word, indicating that the second thing ‘belongs’ to the first. There are different ways to indicate this possession, depending on the word in question. These can become confusing, so let’s look at them in turn. Singular possessives are usually indicated with ‘s. For example:

the girl’s coat
Emma’s car
the city’s main landmark

As are plural possessives that don’t end in s . For example:

the men’s bathroom
children’s toys

In the case of a plural possessive that ends in s , you simply need to add an apostrophe (‘). For example:

the girls’ coats
the Smiths’ house
the tigers’ pen
the computers’ manufacturer

When we come to singular possessives that end in s , the waters get a little bit muddier. The most popular method used to form a singular possessive is to add ‘s , as detailed above. For example:

James’s book
the bus’s engine

However, just adding the apostrophe is also commonly accepted. For example:

James’ book
the bus’ engine

The Importance of the Apostrophe

You’ll notice that subtle differences in your sentence structure can completely alter its meaning, so it’s important to get your grammar on point. For example:

the girl’s coat — belonging to one particular girl
the girls’ coat — a coat designed to be worn by a girl
the girl’s coats — more than one coat belonging to one particular girl)
the girls’ coats — a group of coats belonging to a group of girls

If you find yourself struggling to figure out where the apostrophe needs to go, why not run a free grammar check on your essay with EasyBib Plus? You can also use EasyBib.com to help cite the sources that you use when conducting research and writing your papers . The handy online tool can create citations in the popular APA and MLA format , plus more styles including Chicago/Turabian. Simply find out which style of citation you need to use (ask your professor or lecturer) and let EasyBib Plus help you create them the easy way.

A Blessing of Unicorns

A collective noun is a name given to a collection or group of things. Although they represent more than one, they are usually classed as grammatically singular (in American English). For example:

The pride of lions made its way to water.
The cast of actors collected its award.
The class of students was dismissed early.

They can often stand-alone, if the context makes it clear what collection or group of things is being referred to. For example:

We followed the herd on safari.
I got the cast to sign my autograph book.
The class went on its field trip.

But be careful with this, as they can be used to represent very different things. For example:

flock of tourists or flock of birds ** cluster of spiders* or cluster of stars

So saying “I stared open-mouthed at the cluster before me” could have two very different meanings—you might be staring in wonder or staring in horror! Some collective nouns have developed a more general or colloquial meaning. For example, you get a bunch of flowers or a bunch of bananas. However, bunch is also used more generally to denote ‘several’ or ‘lots’. For example:

I saw a bunch of people that I knew.
Thanks a bunch .

Kooky Collectives

Collectives are one of the quirkiest word types in the English language and include some unusual naming words. For instance, it’s difficult to imagine where the examples below came from. For example:

A shiver of sharks
A quiver of cobras
A blush of boys
A disguising of tailors
A drunkship of cobblers
A worship of writers
A nest of rumors

Friendly Compounds

Compound nouns consist of two or more words that have come together to form a new word with its own meaning. These are words that have decided they don’t want to stand-alone—they can work better together with another word! Both proper and common words can be compounded, and within these compounds are three sub-types. Proper

Closed — PlayStation, YouTube
Hyphenated — Coca-Cola, Chick-fil-A
Open Spaced — New York, Ritz Carlton Hotel
Closed — football, textbook
Hyphenated — mother-in-law, well-being
Open Spaced — bus stop, swimming pool

Wal-Mart Or Walmart?

Fun fact! Some popular brands have dropped their hyphens in recent years. For example, Wal-Mart switched to Walmart in 2009. This could possibly be because hyphenated domain names can cause issues for a brand’s online presence. Brands now have a whole host of digital considerations that simply weren’t on the table when they first decided on a name.

The Pronoun Takeover

While both concrete and abstract noun words are undeniably super useful and essential parts of the English language, they can be a bit much at times. Especially when you’re referring to the same thing several times in a sentence or section. For example:

Sally loves Fanta . Sally drinks Fanta every day.

This is where pronouns come in handy. These often small but ever so mighty words have the power to replace names and make your sentences flow much better. For example:

Sally loves Fanta . She drinks it every day.

This works for both proper and common types.

The Empire State Building (proper) is very tall. It stands at 443m.
Sally (proper) loves chocolate (common). She eats some every day.
My dog (common) has a red ball (common). He likes to chase it .

The antecedent nouns give a reference point for the pronouns.

Is I a Noun or a Pronoun?

Commonly used ‘people’ pronouns include he, she, me, his and hers . However, there’s some debate as to the word I . While I is commonly accepted as a first person pronoun , it may not follow the usual antecedent rule. For example, if you were Sally, you wouldn’t write:

Sally loves Fanta. I drink it every day.

Instead you’d simply write:

I love Fanta. I drink it every day.

I is also classed as a naming word in the following contexts:

I — the name of a letter of the alphabet.
I — the subject or object of self-consciousness, i.e. the ego.

This guide should hopefully have answered lots of naming word questions for you, such as ‘what is a possessive noun?’, but if you’re still struggling you can learn more here . The list of nouns can be difficult to remember, for the simple fact that there are so many different categories and variations of these naming words. People, objects, places, ideas and feelings are things that don’t seem to have much in common—yet they all have names, which lumps them grammatically into the same (very large!) category.

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Writing and Grammar Skills Appendix

Using Noun Phrases and Clauses for Better Topic Sentences

Let’s take a look at two sentences:

1. The first way that Edison changed the world was by inventing electricity.

2. First, Edison changed the world by inventing electricity.

Which of these two sentences do you think is better? Why?

In your essays, you can use either way, but it’s important in writing to use variety. That means you should have different kinds of sentences to make your writing better and more interesting. If you just use “First,” “second,” “last” to separate your ideas, it sounds boring. However, the same happens if all of your body paragraph sentences start like this: “The first way is. . . ”, “the second way is. . . ”

So let’s practice other ways to write topic sentences! Is there a way we can change the sentence parts in 1. to make a similar but different sentence?

Below are several ways to make different kinds of topic sentences, depending on the kind of essay you are writing. You may want to practice by making some example sentences for your essay topic.

Note: Clauses have a subject and a verb, although they may not make a complete idea.

Example: where he was going

Phrases are a group of words, but they do not have a verb. They usually consist of nouns, gerunds, infinitives, adjectives, and prepositions.

Example: the reason behind all the commotion

Before you write an essay, practice making good topic sentences using the charts below.

For classifying information:

For processes:

For compare/contrast:

To explain causes:

To explain effects:

To give reasons:

Other Noun Clauses

It + “be” + adj. + (that) noun clause.

This formula is a very common sentence construct in English. The following adjectives are often used with the formula:

Also, “for + (someone)” and an infinitive can also be added to the formula. Take a look at how the following sentences are constructed using different parts of the formula:

It is impossible that John got away with murder.
It’s too bad for Amy that Bill broke up with her.
It is nice to know that I have good friends to help me.
It is important for students to realize how Greek influence permeates American culture.

Sentence Practice

Practice a variety of the “it is adj” formula in the following sentences.

It is lucky__________________________________________________________________ .
It’s a shame _______________________________________________________________ .
3. It is highly possible ______________________________________________________ .
4. It’s very possible ________________________________________________________ .
5. It is strange _____________________________________________________________ .

Noun clauses from question-answer responses

Another common type of noun clause are ones made from questions. They usually describe discussions of questions or report the answers to questions.

Student A: Where does Xu live?
Student B: I don’t know.
Reported sentence: I don’t know where Xu lives.

The question and the answer can be combined to report someone’s answer about something using noun clauses. The most important thing to remember here is that when you make the question into a noun clause, it does NOT keep the question grammar.

These kinds of noun clauses can be the subject or object of the sentence.

Example: We do not know exactly how many people were affected by the power outage.

Example: Exactly how many people were affected by the power outage remains unknown.

This can be done for all kinds of questions, including yes / no questions. But for yes / no questions, the noun clauses look a little different. For yes / no questions, we can use either “if” or “whether” in the noun clause.

Xu: Are we going to have a test tomorrow?
Bill: I’m not sure.
Bill isn’t sure if we are going to have a test tomorrow.
Whether we have a test tomorrow (or not) depends on Mrs. D’s mood.

For questions that involve “can”, “could”, or “should”, a noun clause can be used or an infinitive.

Xu: I have a big problem. What should I do? Please tell me! Please tell me what I should do about my problem.
Please tell me what to do about my problem.
I don’t know where you could find tacos in this city.
I don’t know where to find tacos in this city.

Noun clause practice

Put together the following conversations into one sentence using a noun clause.

Example: A: Who are you taking to the dance? B: I don’t know yet.

Answer: I don’t know yet who I am taking to the dance.

A: Where did John go? B: I have no idea. __________________________________________________________________________
A: William lost his job. B: That’s a shame. __________________________________________________________________________
A: Who is that girl over there? B: It’s obvious! __________________________________________________________________________
A: Yuxin got roses from her boyfriend! B: That’s so nice! __________________________________________________________________________
A: How can I get to the bus station? B: *gives directions* __________________________________________________________________________
A: It’s snowing. Should I go home or stay here at work until it stops? B: That’s up to you to decide. _________________________________________________________________________
A: Would your sister like to come to my party? B: I’ll find out tonight. __________________________________________________________________________
A: Does the copy machine need more paper? B: I’ll let you know. __________________________________________________________________________
A: Anna loves her new job. B: That’s clear. __________________________________________________________________________
A: How do you use a microwave? B: I don’t know… __________________________________________________________________________

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40 Useful Words and Phrases for Top-Notch Essays

To be truly brilliant, an essay needs to utilise the right language. You could make a great point, but if it’s not intelligently articulated, you almost needn’t have bothered.

Developing the language skills to build an argument and to write persuasively is crucial if you’re to write outstanding essays every time. In this article, we’re going to equip you with the words and phrases you need to write a top-notch essay, along with examples of how to utilise them.

It’s by no means an exhaustive list, and there will often be other ways of using the words and phrases we describe that we won’t have room to include, but there should be more than enough below to help you make an instant improvement to your essay-writing skills.

If you’re interested in developing your language and persuasive skills, Oxford Royale offers summer courses at its Oxford Summer School , Cambridge Summer School , London Summer School , San Francisco Summer School and Yale Summer School . You can study courses to learn english , prepare for careers in law , medicine , business , engineering and leadership.

General explaining

Let’s start by looking at language for general explanations of complex points.

1. In order to

Usage: “In order to” can be used to introduce an explanation for the purpose of an argument. Example: “In order to understand X, we need first to understand Y.”

2. In other words

Usage: Use “in other words” when you want to express something in a different way (more simply), to make it easier to understand, or to emphasise or expand on a point. Example: “Frogs are amphibians. In other words, they live on the land and in the water.”

3. To put it another way

Usage: This phrase is another way of saying “in other words”, and can be used in particularly complex points, when you feel that an alternative way of wording a problem may help the reader achieve a better understanding of its significance. Example: “Plants rely on photosynthesis. To put it another way, they will die without the sun.”

4. That is to say

Usage: “That is” and “that is to say” can be used to add further detail to your explanation, or to be more precise. Example: “Whales are mammals. That is to say, they must breathe air.”

5. To that end

Usage: Use “to that end” or “to this end” in a similar way to “in order to” or “so”. Example: “Zoologists have long sought to understand how animals communicate with each other. To that end, a new study has been launched that looks at elephant sounds and their possible meanings.”

Adding additional information to support a point

Students often make the mistake of using synonyms of “and” each time they want to add further information in support of a point they’re making, or to build an argument . Here are some cleverer ways of doing this.

6. Moreover

Usage: Employ “moreover” at the start of a sentence to add extra information in support of a point you’re making. Example: “Moreover, the results of a recent piece of research provide compelling evidence in support of…”

7. Furthermore

Usage:This is also generally used at the start of a sentence, to add extra information. Example: “Furthermore, there is evidence to suggest that…”

8. What’s more

Usage: This is used in the same way as “moreover” and “furthermore”. Example: “What’s more, this isn’t the only evidence that supports this hypothesis.”

9. Likewise

Usage: Use “likewise” when you want to talk about something that agrees with what you’ve just mentioned. Example: “Scholar A believes X. Likewise, Scholar B argues compellingly in favour of this point of view.”

10. Similarly

Usage: Use “similarly” in the same way as “likewise”. Example: “Audiences at the time reacted with shock to Beethoven’s new work, because it was very different to what they were used to. Similarly, we have a tendency to react with surprise to the unfamiliar.”

11. Another key thing to remember

Usage: Use the phrase “another key point to remember” or “another key fact to remember” to introduce additional facts without using the word “also”. Example: “As a Romantic, Blake was a proponent of a closer relationship between humans and nature. Another key point to remember is that Blake was writing during the Industrial Revolution, which had a major impact on the world around him.”

12. As well as

Usage: Use “as well as” instead of “also” or “and”. Example: “Scholar A argued that this was due to X, as well as Y.”

13. Not only… but also

Usage: This wording is used to add an extra piece of information, often something that’s in some way more surprising or unexpected than the first piece of information. Example: “Not only did Edmund Hillary have the honour of being the first to reach the summit of Everest, but he was also appointed Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire.”

14. Coupled with

Usage: Used when considering two or more arguments at a time. Example: “Coupled with the literary evidence, the statistics paint a compelling view of…”

15. Firstly, secondly, thirdly…

Usage: This can be used to structure an argument, presenting facts clearly one after the other. Example: “There are many points in support of this view. Firstly, X. Secondly, Y. And thirdly, Z.

16. Not to mention/to say nothing of

Usage: “Not to mention” and “to say nothing of” can be used to add extra information with a bit of emphasis. Example: “The war caused unprecedented suffering to millions of people, not to mention its impact on the country’s economy.”

Words and phrases for demonstrating contrast

When you’re developing an argument, you will often need to present contrasting or opposing opinions or evidence – “it could show this, but it could also show this”, or “X says this, but Y disagrees”. This section covers words you can use instead of the “but” in these examples, to make your writing sound more intelligent and interesting.

17. However

Usage: Use “however” to introduce a point that disagrees with what you’ve just said. Example: “Scholar A thinks this. However, Scholar B reached a different conclusion.”

18. On the other hand

Usage: Usage of this phrase includes introducing a contrasting interpretation of the same piece of evidence, a different piece of evidence that suggests something else, or an opposing opinion. Example: “The historical evidence appears to suggest a clear-cut situation. On the other hand, the archaeological evidence presents a somewhat less straightforward picture of what happened that day.”

19. Having said that

Usage: Used in a similar manner to “on the other hand” or “but”. Example: “The historians are unanimous in telling us X, an agreement that suggests that this version of events must be an accurate account. Having said that, the archaeology tells a different story.”

20. By contrast/in comparison

Usage: Use “by contrast” or “in comparison” when you’re comparing and contrasting pieces of evidence. Example: “Scholar A’s opinion, then, is based on insufficient evidence. By contrast, Scholar B’s opinion seems more plausible.”

21. Then again

Usage: Use this to cast doubt on an assertion. Example: “Writer A asserts that this was the reason for what happened. Then again, it’s possible that he was being paid to say this.”

22. That said

Usage: This is used in the same way as “then again”. Example: “The evidence ostensibly appears to point to this conclusion. That said, much of the evidence is unreliable at best.”

Usage: Use this when you want to introduce a contrasting idea. Example: “Much of scholarship has focused on this evidence. Yet not everyone agrees that this is the most important aspect of the situation.”

Adding a proviso or acknowledging reservations

Sometimes, you may need to acknowledge a shortfalling in a piece of evidence, or add a proviso. Here are some ways of doing so.

24. Despite this

Usage: Use “despite this” or “in spite of this” when you want to outline a point that stands regardless of a shortfalling in the evidence. Example: “The sample size was small, but the results were important despite this.”

25. With this in mind

Usage: Use this when you want your reader to consider a point in the knowledge of something else. Example: “We’ve seen that the methods used in the 19th century study did not always live up to the rigorous standards expected in scientific research today, which makes it difficult to draw definite conclusions. With this in mind, let’s look at a more recent study to see how the results compare.”

26. Provided that

Usage: This means “on condition that”. You can also say “providing that” or just “providing” to mean the same thing. Example: “We may use this as evidence to support our argument, provided that we bear in mind the limitations of the methods used to obtain it.”

27. In view of/in light of

Usage: These phrases are used when something has shed light on something else. Example: “In light of the evidence from the 2013 study, we have a better understanding of…”

28. Nonetheless

Usage: This is similar to “despite this”. Example: “The study had its limitations, but it was nonetheless groundbreaking for its day.”

29. Nevertheless

Usage: This is the same as “nonetheless”. Example: “The study was flawed, but it was important nevertheless.”

30. Notwithstanding

Usage: This is another way of saying “nonetheless”. Example: “Notwithstanding the limitations of the methodology used, it was an important study in the development of how we view the workings of the human mind.”

Giving examples

Good essays always back up points with examples, but it’s going to get boring if you use the expression “for example” every time. Here are a couple of other ways of saying the same thing.

31. For instance

Example: “Some birds migrate to avoid harsher winter climates. Swallows, for instance, leave the UK in early winter and fly south…”

32. To give an illustration

Example: “To give an illustration of what I mean, let’s look at the case of…”

Signifying importance

When you want to demonstrate that a point is particularly important, there are several ways of highlighting it as such.

33. Significantly

Usage: Used to introduce a point that is loaded with meaning that might not be immediately apparent. Example: “Significantly, Tacitus omits to tell us the kind of gossip prevalent in Suetonius’ accounts of the same period.”

34. Notably

Usage: This can be used to mean “significantly” (as above), and it can also be used interchangeably with “in particular” (the example below demonstrates the first of these ways of using it). Example: “Actual figures are notably absent from Scholar A’s analysis.”

35. Importantly

Usage: Use “importantly” interchangeably with “significantly”. Example: “Importantly, Scholar A was being employed by X when he wrote this work, and was presumably therefore under pressure to portray the situation more favourably than he perhaps might otherwise have done.”

Summarising

You’ve almost made it to the end of the essay, but your work isn’t over yet. You need to end by wrapping up everything you’ve talked about, showing that you’ve considered the arguments on both sides and reached the most likely conclusion. Here are some words and phrases to help you.

36. In conclusion

Usage: Typically used to introduce the concluding paragraph or sentence of an essay, summarising what you’ve discussed in a broad overview. Example: “In conclusion, the evidence points almost exclusively to Argument A.”

37. Above all

Usage: Used to signify what you believe to be the most significant point, and the main takeaway from the essay. Example: “Above all, it seems pertinent to remember that…”

38. Persuasive

Usage: This is a useful word to use when summarising which argument you find most convincing. Example: “Scholar A’s point – that Constanze Mozart was motivated by financial gain – seems to me to be the most persuasive argument for her actions following Mozart’s death.”

39. Compelling

Usage: Use in the same way as “persuasive” above. Example: “The most compelling argument is presented by Scholar A.”

40. All things considered

Usage: This means “taking everything into account”. Example: “All things considered, it seems reasonable to assume that…”

How many of these words and phrases will you get into your next essay? And are any of your favourite essay terms missing from our list? Let us know in the comments below, or get in touch here to find out more about courses that can help you with your essays.

At Oxford Royale Academy, we offer a number of summer school courses for young people who are keen to improve their essay writing skills. Click here to apply for one of our courses today, including law , business , medicine and engineering .

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Nouns and pronouns

What Is a Noun? | Definition, Types & Examples

A noun is a word that represents a person, thing, concept, or place. Most sentences contain at least one noun or pronoun . For example, the sentences below contain anywhere from one to three nouns.

June is my favourite month .

Nouns are one of the main types of words in English, along with other parts of speech such as verbs. They are often, but not always, preceded by an article (‘the’, ‘a’, or ‘an’) or other determiner.

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How are nouns used in sentences, nouns vs pronouns, common vs proper nouns, countable vs uncountable nouns, concrete vs abstract nouns.

Collective nouns

Other types of nouns

Frequently asked questions about nouns.

A complete sentence usually consists of at least a subject and a verb . The subject describes some person or thing, and the verb describes an action carried out by the subject.

In most cases, the subject is a noun or a pronoun. So the most basic role for a noun is to act as the subject for a verb that follows it.

David went out.

Nouns and pronouns can also play the role of object in a sentence. An object usually comes after the verb and represents something or someone that is affected by the action described. Objects can be direct or indirect:

The direct object is someone or something that is directly acted upon by the verb.
The indirect object is someone or something that receives the direct object.

Please give Jeremy some bread .

Noun phrases

When analysing sentence structure, it’s common to refer to noun phrases . A noun phrase is a noun or pronoun in combination with all the words that belong with it in the sentence, such as any articles, adjectives, or other determiners that modify the noun.

A noun phrase can consist of the noun or pronoun alone or of a much longer series of words (always including at least one noun or pronoun).

The boa constrictor is a well-known species of snake .

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Pronouns are a much smaller set of words (such as ‘I’, ‘she’, and ‘they’) that are used in a similar way to nouns. They are primarily used to stand in for a noun that has already been mentioned or to refer to yourself and other people.

Like nouns, pronouns can function as the head of a noun phrase and as the subject or object of a verb. You can have a complete sentence consisting of just a pronoun and a verb (e.g., ‘He walks.’), just as you could with a noun (‘Jack walks.’).

Unlike nouns, some pronouns (mainly the personal pronouns ) change their forms depending on the grammatical context they’re used in. For example, the first-person pronoun is ‘I’ when it’s used as a subject and ‘me’ when it’s used as an object, whereas a noun like ‘dog’ would look the same in both cases.

Have you ever met them before?

That is beside the point.

An important distinction is made between two types of nouns, common nouns and proper nouns.

Common nouns are more general. A common noun refers to a class of person, place, thing, or concept, but not to someone or something specific.
Proper nouns are the names of specific people, places, things, or concepts. They are always capitalised to distinguish them from common nouns.

Another important distinction is between countable and uncountable nouns :

Countable nouns (also called count nouns ) refer to things that can be counted. They can be preceded by an indefinite article or a number, and they can be pluralised. Most nouns are countable (e.g., ‘fact(s)’).
Uncountable nouns (also called noncount nouns or mass nouns ) refer to things that can’t be counted. They should never be preceded by an indefinite article or a number, and they cannot be pluralised (e.g., ‘information’).

A common mistake in English is treating uncountable nouns as if they were countable by pluralising them or using an indefinite article. The solution to these problems is usually to rephrase using a related term or phrase that is countable.

My previous two researches indicated that …
My previous two studies indicated that …
It’s important to account for bias in a research .
It’s important to account for bias in research.
It’s important to account for bias in a research project.

A distinction is often made between concrete nouns and abstract nouns.

Concrete nouns refer to physical objects, places, or individuals: things or people that can be observed with the senses, such as ‘apple’, ‘hill’, ‘zebra’, and ‘Dorothy’.
Abstract nouns refer to concepts, ideas, feelings, and processes that can’t be physically located, such as ‘grammar’, ‘justice’, ‘sadness’, and ‘relaxation’.

There’s no grammatical difference between concrete and abstract nouns – it’s just a distinction that’s made to point out the different kinds of things nouns can refer to.

A collective noun is a word used to refer to a group of people or things, such as ‘team’, ‘band’, or ‘herd’. A collective noun can also be a proper noun – for example, the name of a specific company or band.

A collective noun may appear to be singular (e.g., ‘team’) or plural (e.g., ‘The Beatles’) in form, and there’s some disagreement about whether they should be treated as singular or plural grammatically. The following applies for US vs. UK English .

In US English , it’s standard to treat collective nouns as singular, regardless of whether they look plural or not.
In UK English , the same words may be treated as plural or singular depending on the context – for example, treated as plural when you’re emphasising the individual members of the group, singular when you’re emphasising the overall collective.

A gaggle of geese is the most threatening thing you’re likely to encounter at the park.

There are many nouns in English (more than any other part of speech), and accordingly many ways of forming nouns and using them. Some other important types of nouns are:

Possessive nouns
Attributive nouns
Appositive nouns
Generic nouns

A possessive noun is a noun that’s followed by an apostrophe (’) and the letter ‘s’ to indicate possession (e.g., ‘my father’s house’).

To indicate possession with a plural noun that ends in ‘s’, you just add the apostrophe after the ‘s’, and don’t add an extra ‘s’ (e.g., ‘my parents’ house’).

A gerund is a noun that is identical to the present participle (the ‘-ing’ form) of a verb. These are typically nouns that describe the same activity as the verb they were formed from, such as ‘driving’, formed from the present participle of ‘drive’.

Attributive nouns are nouns that are used like adjectives, to modify another noun. For example, ‘company’ is an attributive noun in the phrase ‘company policy’.

Even though attributive nouns work similarly to adjectives, they’re still classed as nouns. This is because they don’t fulfill all the requirements of adjectives. For example, they have to appear before the noun – it wouldn’t make sense to say ‘a policy that is company’.

An appositive noun (or appositive noun phrase) is a noun that comes after another noun to provide additional information about it.

If the appositive provides essential information (i.e., it wouldn’t be clear who or what you are referring to without it), it’s written without any extra punctuation. If it provides extra information that is not essential, it’s surrounded by commas .

A generic noun is a noun that is used to refer to a whole class of things (or people, places, etc.). They can be plural or singular, and they may appear with a definite article, an indefinite article, or no article.

The same noun may be used generically in some contexts and not others. For example, it would be equally possible to use the nouns in the sentences below in a non-generic way (e.g., ‘the people I know best are my brothers’; ‘my father operated a printing press’).

A noun is a word that represents a person, thing, concept, or place (e.g., ‘John’, ‘house’, ‘affinity’, ‘river’). Most sentences contain at least one noun or pronoun .

Nouns are often, but not always, preceded by an article (‘the’, ‘a’, or ‘an’) and/or another determiner such as an adjective.

There are many ways to categorize nouns into various types, and the same noun can fall into multiple categories or even change types depending on context.

Some of the main types of nouns are:

Common nouns and proper nouns
Countable and uncountable nouns
Concrete and abstract nouns

Pronouns are words like ‘I’, ‘she’, and ‘they’ that are used in a similar way to nouns . They stand in for a noun that has already been mentioned or refer to yourself and other people.

Pronouns can function just like nouns as the head of a noun phrase and as the subject or object of a verb. However, pronouns change their forms (e.g., from ‘I’ to ‘me’) depending on the grammatical context they’re used in, whereas nouns usually don’t.

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Abstract Noun | Definition, Examples & Worksheet
Appositive | Examples, Definition & Punctuation
Concrete Noun | Definition, Examples & Worksheet
Demonstrative Pronouns | Definition, List & Examples
Emphatic Pronouns | Examples, Definition & List
First-Person Pronouns | List & Explanation
Gerund | Definition, Form & Examples
How to Tell If a Noun Is Countable or Uncountable | Examples
Indefinite Pronouns | Definition, Examples & List
Interrogative Pronouns | Definition, Examples & List
Personal Pronouns | Definition, List & Examples
Possessive Noun | Examples, Definition & Worksheet
Possessive Pronouns | Examples, Definition & List
Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement | Examples & Tips
Reflexive Pronouns | Examples, Definition & List
Relative Pronouns | Definition, List & Examples
Second-Person Pronouns | List, Examples & Explanation
Singular They | Usage, Examples & History
Subject & Object Pronouns | Definition & Examples
Third-Person Pronouns | List, Examples & Explanation
What Is a Collective Noun? | Examples & Definition
What Is a Common Noun? | Definition & Examples
What Is a Plural Noun? | Examples, Rules & Exceptions
What Is a Pronoun? | Definition, Types & Examples
What Is a Proper Noun? | Definition & Examples

EnglishGrammarSoft

50 Example Sentences of Nouns

Example sentences of nouns.

Why are books so common and so cheap today?
I went down to my friend Bob’s farm to help him.
We have plenty of paper and printing machines.
Tobacco is a wonderful commodity to tax.
When comparing men and women in the matter of fashion, the conclusions to be drawn are obvious.
The prosperity of any country depends on its economy.
Man is the architect of his own fate.
Early risers enjoy good and sound health.
The hall contains 50 chairs and 10 round tables.
I bought a laptop for $480 yesterday.
My house is built on an area of 250 square feet.
Julia is working hard to complete her assignment.
She has been working in this company for five years.
The mechanic has fixed my car.
There are five fiberglass doors in my house.
I always use leather made belts.
The cat is sitting on the roof.
This is a century-old building .
The jug is full of water.
The children were playing with the monkey in the zoo .
The kids were feeding the deer in the park
Astle has a superb collection of coins .
Tom is playing the guitar .
Group discussion teaches us to hear the point of view of the other person .
Traveling to new cities and places makes me happy.
Children are much happy to visit the village fair.
Food shortage is there in many countries .
Mrs. Wynne pretends to be a bluestocking.
Driving long distances is my hobby.
This music sounds unpleasant.
The food tastes good.
The officer caught his clerk napping during office hours.
He absented himself from the class.
The milk in the jug smells bad.
I am too tired to do any work.
She has been living in Melbourne since 2006.
He had brown hair.
I prefer health to wealth .
We always sit in the library at 11 a.m.
You can depend on my word .
What were they expecting from South Africa ?
She hung the picture on the wall .
When he was sitting in the garden , a snake bit him.
We shall have reached the station before the train comes.
The older man has been ill for the last two months.
Did he get admission to the college ?
Fleming is a man who loves his fellowmen.
How many times have you gone to Austria ?
All the plants in the valley are
I saw he was writing something in his notebook.

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Understanding What is A Pronoun: Definition, Types & Examples

19 min read

Published on: May 31, 2024

Last updated on: Jun 3, 2024

What is a Pronoun?

Pronouns are words that replace nouns or noun phrases to avoid repetition in sentences. They are a vital part of speech , just like nouns and verbs. They make communication easier by making sentences smoother and clearer.

For example, if we had to keep saying the same nouns over and over again in a sentence. It would sound like this: “Noah went to the store. Noah bought groceries. Noah paid for the items.” It gets a bit tiring, doesn't it?

So, instead of saying, “Noah did this” and “Noah did that,” we can simply use “ you ”. The resulting phrases would be, “She did this” and “She did that.” See how much easier it is?

Some of the most common examples of pronouns are:

What is an Antecedent?

In the context of pronouns, we need to understand antecedents as well. But, what actually is an antecedent?

An antecedent is a word that comes before a pronoun and gives it meaning by telling us what the pronoun refers to. It's like the "manager" of the pronoun, giving it a job to do in the sentence.

For example , in the sentence "John lost his wallet," "John" is the antecedent of the pronoun "his." "John" tells us who the pronoun "his" refers to.
Here's another example : "The dog chased its tail." In this sentence, "dog" is the antecedent of the pronoun "its." The antecedent tells us that the pronoun is talking about the dog's tail.

So, in simple terms, the antecedent is the word that the pronoun stands for or represents in a sentence. It helps us understand what the pronoun means and who or what it's talking about.

Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement

Pronoun-antecedent agreement means that a pronoun must match its antecedent in number (singular or plural) and gender (masculine, feminine, or neuter). This agreement makes sentences clear and grammatically correct.

For example , if the antecedent is singular, the pronoun replacing it should also be singular. Likewise, if the antecedent is plural, the pronoun should be plural as well.

Pronouns vs Nouns

Pronouns and nouns are both essential parts of speech in English, but they serve different roles in sentences. Here is how both can be compared to each other:

Pronouns vs. Determiners

Both are types of words that help us talk about things, but they have different roles in sentences. Let's compare them:

Types of Pronouns with Examples

In the next section, we will discuss the types of pronouns used in the English language, along with examples. Continue reading!

Indefinite Pronouns

Indefinite pronouns are words that don't refer to any specific person, thing, or amount. They are used when we're talking about someone or something in a general or non-specific way.

Here are some commonly used indefinite pronoun words:

Here are a bunch of examples :

Anyone: Anyone can learn to play the guitar if they practice regularly.
Everyone: Everyone wants to be happy in life.
Someone: Someone left their umbrella at the party last night.
Nobody: Nobody knows the answer to that question.
Somebody: Somebody is knocking on the door. Can you check who it is?

Possessive Pronouns

Possessive pronouns show ownership or possession, and they indicate that something belongs to someone or something else. Unlike possessive nouns (which use apostrophes), possessive pronouns stand alone and do not need to be followed by a noun.

These are some common possessive pronouns:

Here are some examples :

Mine: The red car is mine; the blue one is yours.
Yours: Is this book yours?
His: That is his bike parked over there.
Hers: The house with the white fence is hers.
Its: The cat licked its paw.

Demonstrative Pronouns

Demonstrative pronouns are used to point to or identify specific nouns in a sentence. They indicate whether the noun being referred to is nearby or far away in space or time. In English, there are four demonstrative pronouns:

" This " and " these " are used to refer to objects or people that are close in proximity.

"This is my book." (referring to a book nearby)
"These are my friends." (referring to friends nearby)

On the other hand, "that" and "those" are used to refer to objects or people that are farther away in proximity.

"That is your car." (referring to a car at a distance)
"Those are the mountains we climbed." (referring to mountains in the distance)

These pronouns can also be used to emphasize or clarify which specific noun is being referred to in a sentence. They play a huge role in indicating spatial or temporal relationships between the speaker and the object that is being talked about.

Personal Pronouns

Personal pronouns are words used to replace nouns in a sentence to avoid repetition and make the language more efficient. They represent people or things and can vary depending on the role they play in a sentence (e.g., subject, object, possessive).

These pronouns refer to the person speaking (first person), the person spoken to (second person), or the person or thing being spoken about (third person).

In English, personal pronouns include:

Take a look at these examples:

I went to the store to buy some groceries
She is going to the park to meet her friends
He loves to play basketball in his free time
We are planning a trip to the beach next weekend
They are studying for their exams together

In these examples, "I," "she," "he," "we," "they," "you," and "it" are all personal pronouns replacing nouns in the sentences.

Reflexive Pronouns

Reflexive pronouns are used when the subject and the object of a sentence are the same entity. They are formed by adding "-self" (singular) or "-selves" (plural) to personal pronouns. These parts of speech serve to reflect the action of the verb back onto the subject.

These pronouns refer back to the subject in the sentence, showing the connection between the subject and the action it performs.

Here are some reflexive pronouns:

Take a look at some examples:

I will do it myself.
You should be proud of yourself.
He hurt himself while playing soccer.
She bought herself a new dress.
The cat groomed itself.

In these examples, reflexive pronouns such as myself, yourself, himself, etc. are used to reflect the action of the verb back onto the subject.

Interrogative Pronouns

Interrogative pronouns are words used to ask questions. They help us get information about people or things. Some common examples are:

We use these pronouns to ask questions like:

Who is coming to the party?
Whom did you see at the store?
Whose book is this?
What is your favorite color?
Which car do you want to buy?

So, whenever you want to ask about someone or something, you can use interrogative pronouns. They help you gather information by asking questions.

Reciprocal Pronouns

In the English language, there are only two reciprocal pronouns.

One another

These are used when two or more people do something to each other. They indicate a mutual action or relationship between the subjects involved.

Take a glance at these examples:

The students in the class often help one another with assignments and share study tips.
In times of crisis, communities come together to support one another and provide assistance.
Sarah and Jack are always there for each other, offering encouragement and advice whenever needed.
The team members trust one another's abilities and work collaboratively to achieve their goals.

In these sentences, “one another” is used to express the mutual action or relationship between the subjects involved, just like “each other.”

Intensive Pronouns

Also known as emphatic or intensive pronouns are used to emphasize or intensify a noun or pronoun in a sentence. They look like reflexive pronouns but serve a different purpose.

Unlike reflexive pronouns, they don't reflect actions back to the subject. Instead, they add emphasis. They're used to showing strong feelings like pride or shock.

The most common intensive pronouns are:

Following are some example sentences:

Did you yourself see Loretta spill the coffee?
She herself solved the difficult math problem.
They themselves organized the charity event.
The president himself addressed the nation.
We ourselves cleaned up the mess.

In these sentences, the intensive pronouns such as myself, yourself and himself emphasize or intensify the noun or pronoun they refer to.

Relative Pronouns

To introduce relative clauses in a sentence, we make use of relative pronouns. These clauses provide additional information about a noun or pronoun mentioned earlier in the sentence. They also relate the clause they introduce to the noun or pronoun they refer to.

Common relative pronouns include:

Who: Refers to people (subject or object).
Whom: Refers to people (object).
Whose: Shows possession and refers to people or things.
Which: Refers to things or animals.
That: Refers to people, things, or animals (less formal than "who" or "which").

Look at a handful of example sentences:

The man who lives next door is a doctor. ("Who" introduces the relative clause "who lives next door" and refers to "the man.")
The car which is parked in front of the house belongs to John. ("Which" introduces the relative clause "which is parked in front of the house" and refers to "the car.")
The cat whom we adopted from the shelter is very playful. ("Whom" introduces the relative clause "whom we adopted from the shelter" and refers to "the cat.")

Distributive Pronouns

Distributive pronouns are used to refer to individual members or things within a group, rather than collectively. They emphasize the individual rather than the group as a whole.

Common distributive pronouns include:

Take a look at some examples of distributive pronouns used in sentences:

Each of the students received a certificate for their achievements.
Every employee is responsible for completing their assigned tasks.
Either of the options is acceptable for the project.
Neither of the candidates met the qualifications for the job.

In these sentences, the distributive pronouns highlight individual members or things within a group.

Dummy Pronouns

Also known as impersonal or expletive pronouns, dummy pronouns don't refer to any specific noun or entity. Instead, they serve grammatical functions, such as filling a subject or object position in a sentence.

These pronouns are often used in certain constructions to maintain grammatical structure or to fulfill syntactic requirements.

Some common examples are:

Let’s take a look at how common pronouns are used in sentences:

"It" as a dummy pronoun in weather expressions:

It is raining.
It seems that the meeting will be postponed.

"There" as a dummy pronoun in existential constructions:

There are many books on the shelf.
There seems to be a problem with the computer.

"Itself" as a dummy pronoun in reflexive constructions:

The book practically reads itself.
The problem resolved itself over time.

In the examples provided above, "it," "there," and "itself" function to enhance sentence structure and syntax without directly referring to specific nouns.

Quiz: Test Your Pronoun Knowledge

Now that you've learned about pronouns and their types, it's time to put your knowledge to the test! Take this pronoun exercise quiz to see how well you understand this part of speech. In each sentence, identify the type of pronoun used and fill in the corresponding category in the table below.

In conclusion , pronouns are small but mighty words that make our language smoother and conversations less repetitive. By replacing nouns, they help us communicate more efficiently.

This blog explored an extensive pronouns list, like personal, possessive, and demonstrative, each with its own job in a sentence. We also learned about antecedents, which give meaning to pronouns. We're sure that you now understand pronouns better and can use them confidently.

So, keep practicing and pay attention to how pronouns work in everyday language.

Are You Lacking Grammar Skills?

If you're not sure if your writing is correct or following grammar rules, try using the Grammar Checker at MyEssayWriter.ai . It can quickly point out any spelling, punctuation, or sentence structure mistakes, helping you get better at writing and communicating effectively. Or, try out our essay writer AI free with no sign up to generate an essay on your desired topic.

Caleb S. (Mass Literature and Linguistics)

Caleb S. is an accomplished author with over five years of experience and a Master's degree from Oxford University. He excels in various writing forms, including articles, press releases, blog posts, and whitepapers. As a valued author at MyEssayWriter.ai, Caleb assists students and professionals by providing practical tips on research, citation, sentence structure, and style enhancement.

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When Prison and Mental Illness Amount to a Death Sentence

The downward spiral of one inmate, Markus Johnson, shows the larger failures of the nation’s prisons to care for the mentally ill.

Supported by

By Glenn Thrush

Photographs by Carlos Javier Ortiz

Glenn Thrush spent more than a year reporting this article, interviewing close to 50 people and reviewing court-obtained body-camera footage and more than 1,500 pages of documents.

Published May 5, 2024 Updated May 7, 2024

Markus Johnson slumped naked against the wall of his cell, skin flecked with pepper spray, his face a mask of puzzlement, exhaustion and resignation. Four men in black tactical gear pinned him, his face to the concrete, to cuff his hands behind his back.

He did not resist. He couldn’t. He was so gravely dehydrated he would be dead by their next shift change.

Listen to this article with reporter commentary

“I didn’t do anything,” Mr. Johnson moaned as they pressed a shield between his shoulders.

It was 1:19 p.m. on Sept. 6, 2019, in the Danville Correctional Center, a medium-security prison a few hours south of Chicago. Mr. Johnson, 21 and serving a short sentence for gun possession, was in the throes of a mental collapse that had gone largely untreated, but hardly unwatched.

He had entered in good health, with hopes of using the time to gain work skills. But for the previous three weeks, Mr. Johnson, who suffered from bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, had refused to eat or take his medication. Most dangerous of all, he had stealthily stopped drinking water, hastening the physical collapse that often accompanies full-scale mental crises.

Mr. Johnson’s horrific downward spiral, which has not been previously reported, represents the larger failures of the nation’s prisons to care for the mentally ill. Many seriously ill people receive no treatment . For those who do, the outcome is often determined by the vigilance and commitment of individual supervisors and frontline staff, which vary greatly from system to system, prison to prison, and even shift to shift.

The country’s jails and prisons have become its largest provider of inpatient mental health treatment, with 10 times as many seriously mentally ill people now held behind bars as in hospitals. Estimating the population of incarcerated people with major psychological problems is difficult, but the number is likely 200,000 to 300,000, experts say.

Many of these institutions remain ill-equipped to handle such a task, and the burden often falls on prison staff and health care personnel who struggle with the dual roles of jailer and caregiver in a high-stress, dangerous, often dehumanizing environment.

In 2021, Joshua McLemore , a 29-year-old with schizophrenia held for weeks in an isolation cell in Jackson County, Ind., died of organ failure resulting from a “refusal to eat or drink,” according to an autopsy. In April, New York City agreed to pay $28 million to settle a lawsuit filed by the family of Nicholas Feliciano, a young man with a history of mental illness who suffered severe brain damage after attempting to hang himself on Rikers Island — as correctional officers stood by.

Mr. Johnson’s mother has filed a wrongful-death suit against the state and Wexford Health Sources, a for-profit health care contractor in Illinois prisons. The New York Times reviewed more than 1,500 pages of reports, along with depositions taken from those involved. Together, they reveal a cascade of missteps, missed opportunities, potential breaches of protocol and, at times, lapses in common sense.

A woman wearing a jeans jacket sitting at a table showing photos of a young boy on her cellphone.

Prison officials and Wexford staff took few steps to intervene even after it became clear that Mr. Johnson, who had been hospitalized repeatedly for similar episodes and recovered, had refused to take medication. Most notably, they did not transfer him to a state prison facility that provides more intensive mental health treatment than is available at regular prisons, records show.

The quality of medical care was also questionable, said Mr. Johnson’s lawyers, Sarah Grady and Howard Kaplan, a married legal team in Chicago. Mr. Johnson lost 50 to 60 pounds during three weeks in solitary confinement, but officials did not initiate interventions like intravenous feedings or transfer him to a non-prison hospital.

And they did not take the most basic step — dialing 911 — until it was too late.

There have been many attempts to improve the quality of mental health treatment in jails and prisons by putting care on par with punishment — including a major effort in Chicago . But improvements have proved difficult to enact and harder to sustain, hampered by funding and staffing shortages.

Lawyers representing the state corrections department, Wexford and staff members who worked at Danville declined to comment on Mr. Johnson’s death, citing the unresolved litigation. In their interviews with state police investigators, and in depositions, employees defended their professionalism and adherence to procedure, while citing problems with high staff turnover, difficult work conditions, limited resources and shortcomings of co-workers.

But some expressed a sense of resignation about the fate of Mr. Johnson and others like him.

Prisoners have “much better chances in a hospital, but that’s not their situation,” said a senior member of Wexford’s health care team in a deposition.

“I didn’t put them in prison,” he added. “They are in there for a reason.”

Markus Mison Johnson was born on March 1, 1998, to a mother who believed she was not capable of caring for him.

Days after his birth, he was taken in by Lisa Barker Johnson, a foster mother in her 30s who lived in Zion, Ill., a working-class city halfway between Chicago and Milwaukee. Markus eventually became one of four children she adopted from different families.

The Johnson house is a lively split level, with nieces, nephews, grandchildren and neighbors’ children, family keepsakes, video screens and juice boxes. Ms. Johnson sits at its center on a kitchen chair, chin resting on her hand as children wander over to share their thoughts, or to tug on her T-shirt to ask her to be their bathroom buddy.

From the start, her bond with Markus was particularly powerful, in part because the two looked so much alike, with distinctive dimpled smiles. Many neighbors assumed he was her biological son. The middle name she chose for him was intended to convey that message.

“Mison is short for ‘my son,’” she said standing over his modest footstone grave last summer.

He was happy at home. School was different. His grades were good, but he was intensely shy and was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in elementary school.

That was around the time the bullying began. His sisters were fierce defenders, but they could only do so much. He did the best he could, developing a quick, taunting tongue.

These experiences filled him with a powerful yearning to fit in.

It was not to be.

When he was around 15, he called 911 in a panic, telling the dispatcher he saw two men standing near the small park next to his house threatening to abduct children playing there. The officers who responded found nothing out of the ordinary, and rang the Johnsons’ doorbell.

He later told his mother he had heard a voice telling him to “protect the kids.”

He was hospitalized for the first time at 16, and given medications that stabilized him for stretches of time. But the crises would strike every six months or so, often triggered by his decision to stop taking his medication.

His family became adept at reading signs he was “getting sick.” He would put on his tan Timberlands and a heavy winter coat, no matter the season, and perch on the edge of his bed as if bracing for battle. Sometimes, he would cook his own food, paranoid that someone might poison him.

He graduated six months early, on the dean’s list, but was rudderless, and hanging out with younger boys, often paying their way.

His mother pointed out the perils of buying friendship.

“I don’t care,” he said. “At least I’ll be popular for a minute.”

Zion’s inviting green grid of Bible-named streets belies the reality that it is a rough, unforgiving place to grow up. Family members say Markus wanted desperately to prove he was tough, and emulated his younger, reckless group of friends.

Like many of them, he obtained a pistol. He used it to hold up a convenience store clerk for $425 in January 2017, according to police records. He cut a plea deal for two years of probation, and never explained to his family what had made him do it.

But he kept getting into violent confrontations. In late July 2018, he was arrested in a neighbor’s garage with a handgun he later admitted was his. He was still on probation for the robbery, and his public defender negotiated a plea deal that would send him to state prison until January 2020.

An inpatient mental health system

Around 40 percent of the about 1.8 million people in local, state and federal jails and prison suffer from at least one mental illness, and many of these people have concurrent issues with substance abuse, according to recent Justice Department estimates.

Psychological problems, often exacerbated by drug use, often lead to significant medical problems resulting from a lack of hygiene or access to good health care.

“When you suffer depression in the outside world, it’s hard to concentrate, you have reduced energy, your sleep is disrupted, you have a very gloomy outlook, so you stop taking care of yourself,” said Robert L. Trestman , a Virginia Tech medical school professor who has worked on state prison mental health reforms.

The paradox is that prison is often the only place where sick people have access to even minimal care.

But the harsh work environment, remote location of many prisons, and low pay have led to severe shortages of corrections staff and the unwillingness of doctors, nurses and counselors to work with the incarcerated mentally ill.

In the early 2000s, prisoners’ rights lawyers filed a class-action lawsuit against Illinois claiming “deliberate indifference” to the plight of about 5,000 mentally ill prisoners locked in segregated units and denied treatment and medication.

In 2014, the parties reached a settlement that included minimum staffing mandates, revamped screening protocols, restrictions on the use of solitary confinement and the allocation of about $100 million to double capacity in the system’s specialized mental health units.

Yet within six months of the deal, Pablo Stewart, an independent monitor chosen to oversee its enforcement, declared the system to be in a state of emergency.

Over the years, some significant improvements have been made. But Dr. Stewart’s final report , drafted in 2022, gave the system failing marks for its medication and staffing policies and reliance on solitary confinement “crisis watch” cells.

Ms. Grady, one of Mr. Johnson’s lawyers, cited an additional problem: a lack of coordination between corrections staff and Wexford’s professionals, beyond dutifully filling out dozens of mandated status reports.

“Markus Johnson was basically documented to death,” she said.

‘I’m just trying to keep my head up’

Mr. Johnson was not exactly looking forward to prison. But he saw it as an opportunity to learn a trade so he could start a family when he got out.

On Dec. 18, 2018, he arrived at a processing center in Joliet, where he sat for an intake interview. He was coherent and cooperative, well-groomed and maintained eye contact. He was taking his medication, not suicidal and had a hearty appetite. He was listed as 5 feet 6 inches tall and 256 pounds.

Mr. Johnson described his mood as “go with the flow.”

A few days later, after arriving in Danville, he offered a less settled assessment during a telehealth visit with a Wexford psychiatrist, Dr. Nitin Thapar. Mr. Johnson admitted to being plagued by feelings of worthlessness, hopelessness and “constant uncontrollable worrying” that affected his sleep.

He told Dr. Thapar he had heard voices in the past — but not now — telling him he was a failure, and warning that people were out to get him.

At the time he was incarcerated, the basic options for mentally ill people in Illinois prisons included placement in the general population or transfer to a special residential treatment program at the Dixon Correctional Center, west of Chicago. Mr. Johnson seemed out of immediate danger, so he was assigned to a standard two-man cell in the prison’s general population, with regular mental health counseling and medication.

Things started off well enough. “I’m just trying to keep my head up,” he wrote to his mother. “Every day I learn to be stronger & stronger.”

But his daily phone calls back home hinted at friction with other inmates. And there was not much for him to do after being turned down for a janitorial training program.

Then, in the spring of 2019, his grandmother died, sending him into a deep hole.

Dr. Thapar prescribed a new drug used to treat major depressive disorders. Its most common side effect is weight gain. Mr. Johnson stopped taking it.

On July 4, he told Dr. Thapar matter-of-factly during a telehealth check-in that he was no longer taking any of his medications. “I’ve been feeling normal, I guess,” he said. “I feel like I don’t need the medication anymore.”

Dr. Thapar said he thought that was a mistake, but accepted the decision and removed Mr. Johnson from his regular mental health caseload — instructing him to “reach out” if he needed help, records show.

The pace of calls back home slackened. Mr. Johnson spent more time in bed, and became more surly. At a group-therapy session, he sat stone silent, after showing up late.

By early August, he was telling guards he had stopped eating.

At some point, no one knows when, he had intermittently stopped drinking fluids.

‘I’m having a breakdown’

Then came the crash.

On Aug. 12, Mr. Johnson got into a fight with his older cellmate.

He was taken to a one-man disciplinary cell. A few hours later, Wexford’s on-site mental health counselor, Melanie Easton, was shocked by his disoriented condition. Mr. Johnson stared blankly, then burst into tears when asked if he had “suffered a loss in the previous six months.”

He was so unresponsive to her questions she could not finish the evaluation.

Ms. Easton ordered that he be moved to a 9-foot by 8-foot crisis cell — solitary confinement with enhanced monitoring. At this moment, a supervisor could have ticked the box for “residential treatment” on a form to transfer him to Dixon. That did not happen, according to records and depositions.

Around this time, he asked to be placed back on his medication but nothing seems to have come of it, records show.

By mid-August, he said he was visualizing “people that were not there,” according to case notes. At first, he was acting more aggressively, once flicking water at a guard through a hole in his cell door. But his energy ebbed, and he gradually migrated downward — from standing to bunk to floor.

“I’m having a breakdown,” he confided to a Wexford employee.

At the time, inmates in Illinois were required to declare an official hunger strike before prison officials would initiate protocols, including blood testing or forced feedings. But when a guard asked Mr. Johnson why he would not eat, he said he was “fasting,” as opposed to starving himself, and no action seems to have been taken.

‘Tell me this is OK!’

Lt. Matthew Morrison, one of the few people at Danville to take a personal interest in Mr. Johnson, reported seeing a white rind around his mouth in early September. He told other staff members the cell gave off “a death smell,” according to a deposition.

On Sept. 5, they moved Mr. Johnson to one of six cells adjacent to the prison’s small, bare-bones infirmary. Prison officials finally placed him on the official hunger strike protocol without his consent.

Mr. Morrison, in his deposition, said he was troubled by the inaction of the Wexford staff, and the lack of urgency exhibited by the medical director, Dr. Justin Young.

On Sept. 5, Mr. Morrison approached Dr. Young to express his concerns, and the doctor agreed to order blood and urine tests. But Dr. Young lived in Chicago, and was on site at the prison about four times a week, according to Mr. Kaplan. Friday, Sept. 6, 2019, was not one of those days.

Mr. Morrison arrived at work that morning, expecting to find Mr. Johnson’s testing underway. A Wexford nurse told him Dr. Young believed the tests could wait.

Mr. Morrison, stunned, asked her to call Dr. Young.

“He’s good till Monday,” Dr. Young responded, according to Mr. Morrison.

“Come on, come on, look at this guy! You tell me this is OK!” the officer responded.

Eventually, Justin Duprey, a licensed nurse practitioner and the most senior Wexford employee on duty that day, authorized the test himself.

Mr. Morrison, thinking he had averted a disaster, entered the cell and implored Mr. Johnson into taking the tests. He refused.

So prison officials obtained approval to remove him forcibly from his cell.

‘Oh, my God’

What happened next is documented in video taken from cameras held by officers on the extraction team and obtained by The Times through a court order.

Mr. Johnson is scarcely recognizable as the neatly groomed 21-year-old captured in a cellphone picture a few months earlier. His skin is ashen, eyes fixed on the middle distance. He might be 40. Or 60.

At first, he places his hands forward through the hole in his cell door to be cuffed. This is against procedure, the officers shout. His hands must be in back.

He will not, or cannot, comply. He wanders to the rear of his cell and falls hard. Two blasts of pepper spray barely elicit a reaction. The leader of the tactical team later said he found it unusual and unnerving.

The next video is in the medical unit. A shield is pressed to his chest. He is in agony, begging for them to stop, as two nurses attempt to insert a catheter.

Then they move him, half-conscious and limp, onto a wheelchair for the blood draw.

For the next 20 minutes, the Wexford nurse performing the procedure, Angelica Wachtor, jabs hands and arms to find a vessel that will hold shape. She winces with each puncture, tries to comfort him, and grows increasingly rattled.

“Oh, my God,” she mutters, and asks why help is not on the way.

She did not request assistance or discuss calling 911, records indicate.

“Can you please stop — it’s burning real bad,” Mr. Johnson said.

Soon after, a member of the tactical team reminds Ms. Wachtor to take Mr. Johnson’s vitals before taking him back to his cell. She would later tell Dr. Young she had been unable to able to obtain his blood pressure.

“You good?” one of the team members asks as they are preparing to leave.

“Yeah, I’ll have to be,” she replies in the recording.

Officers lifted him back onto his bunk, leaving him unconscious and naked except for a covering draped over his groin. His expressionless face is visible through the window on the cell door as it closes.

‘Cardiac arrest.’

Mr. Duprey, the nurse practitioner, had been sitting inside his office after corrections staff ordered him to shelter for his own protection, he said. When he emerged, he found Ms. Wachtor sobbing, and after a delay, he was let into the cell. Finding no pulse, Mr. Duprey asked a prison employee to call 911 so Mr. Johnson could be taken to a local emergency room.

The Wexford staff initiated CPR. It did not work.

At 3:38 p.m., the paramedics declared Markus Mison Johnson dead.

Afterward, a senior official at Danville called the Johnson family to say he had died of “cardiac arrest.”

Lisa Johnson pressed for more information, but none was initially forthcoming. She would soon receive a box hastily crammed with his possessions: uneaten snacks, notebooks, an inspirational memoir by a man who had served 20 years at Leavenworth.

Later, Shiping Bao, the coroner who examined his body, determined Mr. Johnson had died of severe dehydration. He told the state police it “was one of the driest bodies he had ever seen.”

For a long time, Ms. Johnson blamed herself. She says that her biggest mistake was assuming that the state, with all its resources, would provide a level of care comparable to what she had been able to provide her son.

She had stopped accepting foster care children while she was raising Markus and his siblings. But as the months dragged on, she decided her once-boisterous house had become oppressively still, and let local agencies know she was available again.

“It is good to have children around,” she said. “It was too quiet around here.”

Read by Glenn Thrush

Audio produced by Jack D’Isidoro .

Glenn Thrush covers the Department of Justice. He joined The Times in 2017 after working for Politico, Newsday, Bloomberg News, The New York Daily News, The Birmingham Post-Herald and City Limits. More about Glenn Thrush

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FCE Essay Checklist

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Complete each sentence with the correct noun
Common Noun and Proper Noun examples
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Noun Clause. // Joining Using Noun Clause. // Duff & Dutt Page-75 Answer
Pronunciation of Essay as a Noun and a Verb #shorts #learnenglish
NOUN TO ADJECTIVE

COMMENTS

Examples of 'Essay' in a Sentence
Hazlitt , 28 June 2023. Love followed a few weeks later with a first-person essay about his anxiety. —. Tim Reynolds, Twin Cities , 4 Mar. 2024. Teigen wrote an essay in 2020 about her experience with losing their son Jack. —.
How To Use "Essay" In A Sentence: In-Depth Exploration
Grammatical Rules Surrounding Essay. 1. As a noun: When "essay" functions as a noun, it typically refers to a piece of writing that presents a writer's perspective or argument on a particular topic. It is important to remember that as a noun, "essay" should be treated as a singular noun, even though it may describe multiple essays.
What Is a Noun?
A noun is a word that represents a person, thing, concept, or place. Most sentences contain at least one noun or pronoun. For example, the sentences below contain anywhere from one to three nouns. Examples: Nouns in a sentence The dog . ran very fast. June is my favorite month. Teachers emphasize the importance of grammar.
110+ Examples of nouns Sentences in English
Examples of nouns Sentences. Nouns are a part of speech in the English language used to name people, places, things, ideas, and concepts. They are used to identify and describe objects, people, places, animals, and other things. For example, "apple", "chair", "table", "house", "dog", "teacher", "city", and "idea ...
essay noun
Definition of essay noun in Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary. Meaning, pronunciation, picture, example sentences, grammar, usage notes, synonyms and more.
ESSAY definition and meaning
essay in American English. (noun for 1, 2 ˈesei, for 3-5 ˈesei, eˈsei, verb eˈsei) noun. 1. a short literary composition on a particular theme or subject, usually in prose and generally analytic, speculative, or interpretative. 2. anything resembling such a composition. a picture essay.
Sentence Structure and Types of Sentences
A simple sentence contains a subject and a verb, and it may also have an object and modifiers. However, it contains only one independent clause. Key: Yellow, bold = subject; green underline = verb, blue, italics = object, pink, regular font =prepositional phrase. Here are a few examples: She wrote.
Introduction to nouns (video)
It's a kind of noun called a proper noun, just like Raul is but we'll get to that later. So, Argentina is a noun. Argentina incidentally is a country and the word country is also a noun because it is a thing. So, sentence the third. He is a penguin. Now, a penguin is a living being or a thing so we can say oh yes, penguin, that is a noun as well.
What Is a Pronoun?
Revised on March 2, 2023. A pronoun is a word that stands in for a noun, often to avoid the need to repeat the same noun over and over. Like nouns, pronouns can refer to people, things, concepts, and places. Most sentences contain at least one noun or pronoun. People tend to use "pronouns" to mean personal pronouns specifically, but there ...
Noun guide from EasyBib.com. Learn about the common and proper noun
Feelings — anger, joy, love, envy. In many cases, both a common and proper noun can be applied to the same thing. For example: A Baby Ruth (proper) is a chocolate bar (common). Rihanna (proper) is a popular singer (common) in the US. Mrs. Smith (proper) is a teacher (common). Benji (proper) is a dog (common).
Using Noun Phrases and Clauses for Better Topic Sentences
Other Noun Clauses. It + "be" + adj. + (that) noun clause. This formula is a very common sentence construct in English. The following adjectives are often used with the formula: Also, "for + (someone)" and an infinitive can also be added to the formula.
40 Useful Words and Phrases for Top-Notch Essays
4. That is to say. Usage: "That is" and "that is to say" can be used to add further detail to your explanation, or to be more precise. Example: "Whales are mammals. That is to say, they must breathe air.". 5. To that end. Usage: Use "to that end" or "to this end" in a similar way to "in order to" or "so".
ESSAY definition in American English
essay in American English. (noun for 1, 2 ˈesei, for 3-5 ˈesei, eˈsei, verb eˈsei) noun. 1. a short literary composition on a particular theme or subject, usually in prose and generally analytic, speculative, or interpretative. 2. anything resembling such a composition. a picture essay.
What Is a Common Noun?
A common noun is a noun that describes a type of person, thing, or place or that names a concept. Common nouns are not capitalized unless they appear at the start of a sentence, unlike proper nouns, which are always capitalized. Common nouns include the names of different jobs, plants and animals, geographical features, ideas, objects, and many ...
What Is a Noun?
A noun is a word that represents a person, thing, concept, or place. Most sentences contain at least one noun or pronoun. For example, the sentences below contain anywhere from one to three nouns. The dog ran very fast. June is my favourite month. Teachers emphasise the importance of grammar. Nouns are one of the main types of words in English ...
50 Example Sentences of Nouns
Example Sentences of Nouns. Why are books so common and so cheap today?; I went down to my friend Bob's farm to help him.; We have plenty of paper and printing machines.; Tobacco is a wonderful commodity to tax.; When comparing men and women in the matter of fashion, the conclusions to be drawn are obvious.; The prosperity of any country depends on its economy.; Man is the architect of his ...
What is A Pronoun? Description, Types, and Examples
Pronouns are words that replace nouns or noun phrases to avoid repetition in sentences. They are a vital part of speech, just like nouns and verbs. They make communication easier by making sentences smoother and clearer. For example, if we had to keep saying the same nouns over and over again in a sentence. It would sound like this: "Noah ...
What Is a Plural Noun?
A plural noun is a noun that refers to more than one of something (as opposed to a singular noun, which refers to just one). Like singular nouns, they may refer to people, animals, things, concepts, or places. Plural nouns are normally formed by adding -s to the singular noun (e.g., the singular "cat" becomes the plural "cats").
Opinion
Below are two legal experts weighing in on the critical question of whether Mr. Trump ought to receive a prison sentence. The Case for Prison Time for Trump By Norman Eisen
For Markus Johnson, Prison and Mental Illness Equaled a Death Sentence
Johnson, 21 and serving a short sentence for gun possession, was in the throes of a mental collapse that had gone largely untreated, but hardly unwatched. He had entered in good health, with hopes ...