Definition and Examples of Abstract Nouns in English

Definition and Examples of Abstract Nouns in English In English grammar, an abstract noun  is a  noun or noun phrase  that names an idea, event, quality or concept - for example, courage, freedom, progress, love, patience, excellence and friendship.  An abstract noun names something that cant be physically touched. Contrast that with a  concrete noun. According to A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language, abstract nouns are typically non-observable and nonmeasurable.†Ã‚  But, as James Hurford explains, the distinction between abstract nouns and  other common nouns is relatively unimportant, as far as grammar is concerned. (James Hurford, Grammar: A Students Guide. Cambridge University Press, 1994) Examples and Observations Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired.(Robert Frost)Her face, which was long and dark chocolate brown, had a thin sheet of sadness over it, as light but as permanent as the viewing gauze on a coffin.(Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Random House, 1969)Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.(Erich Fromm)Silence can be  a source of great strength.Men say they love independence in a woman, but they dont waste a second demolishing it brick by brick.(Candice Bergen, quoted by Catherine Breslin in The Mistress Condition. Dutton, 1976)When love is gone, theres always justice.And when justice is gone, theres always force.And when force is gone, theres always Mom.Hi, Mom!(Laurie Anderson, O Superman. 1981)Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.(Bertrand Russell, An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish. Unpopular Essays. Simon Schuster Inc., 1950) More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.(Woody Allen, My Speech to the Graduates. The New York Times, 1979) The Nature of Abstract Nouns Abstract and concrete are usually defined together or in terms of each other. The abstract is that which exists only in our minds, that which we cannot know through our senses. It includes qualities, relationships, conditions, ideas, theories, states of being, fields of inquiry and the like. We cannot know a quality such as consistency directly through our senses; we can only see or hear about people acting in ways that we come to label consistent. (William Vande Kopple, Clear and Coherent Prose. Scott Foresman Co., 1989) Countable and Uncountable Abstract Nouns Although abstract nouns tend to be uncountable (courage, happiness, news, tennis, training), many are countable (an hour, a joke, a quantity). Others can be both, often with shifts of meaning from general to particular (great kindness/many kindnesses).(Tom McArthur, Abstract and Concrete. The Oxford Companion to the English Language. Oxford University Press, 1992) Inflection of Abstract Nouns [M]any abstract nouns are generally not inflected for number (lucks, nauseas) or they do not occur in the possessive (the commitments time). (M. Lynne Murphy and Anu Koskela, Key Terms in Semantics. Continuum, 2010) The Grammatical Unimportance of Abstract Nouns [R]ecognizing abstract nouns is relatively unimportant, as far as grammar is concerned. This is because there are few, if any, particular grammatical properties that affect just the set of abstract nouns. ... One suspects that the reason for the recurrent mention of abstract nouns is the clash between their (abstract) meanings and the traditional definition of a noun as the name of a person, place or thing. The existence of obvious nouns such as liberty, action, sin and time is a sore embarrassment to such a definition, and the pragmatic response has been to apply a distinctive label to the problematic words. (James R. Hurford, Grammar: A Students Guide. Cambridge University Press, 1994) The Lighter Side of Abstract Nouns It represents Discipline, said Mr. Etherege. ... And to the uninstructed mind, Uniformity. His abstract nouns were audibly furnished with capital letters. But the latter notion is fallacious.No doubt, said Fen. He perceived that this incipient homily required punctuation rather than argument.Fallacious, Mr. Etherege proceeded, because the attempt to produce Uniformity inevitably accentuates  Eccentricity. It makes Eccentricity, as it were, safe. (Bruce Montgomery [aka Edmund Crispin], Love Lies Bleeding. Vintage, 1948)

The 1860s Boshin War in Japan

The 1860s Boshin War in Japan When  Commodore Matthew Perry  and the American black ships showed up in Edo Harbor, their appearance and subsequent opening of  Japan  set off an unpredictable chain of events in  Tokugawa Japan, chief among them a civil war that broke out fifteen years later: the Boshin War. The Boshin War lasted only two years, between 1868 and 1869, and pitted Japanese samurai and nobles against the reigning Tokugawa regime, wherein the samurai wanted to overthrow the  shogun  and return political power to the emperor. Ultimately, t he militant pro-emperor samurai of Satsuma and Choshu convinced the emperor to issue a decree dissolving the House of Tokugawa, a potentially fatal blow to the former shoguns family. First Signs of the War On January 27, 1868, the shogunates army - numbering over 15,000 and primarily comprised of traditional samurai  - attacked the troops of Satsuma and Choshu at the southern entrance to Kyoto, the imperial capital. Choshu and Satsuma had only 5,000 troops in the fight, but they had modern weaponry including rifles, howitzers, and even Gatling guns. When the pro-imperial troops won the two-day-long fight, several important daimyo switched their allegiance from the shogun to the emperor. On February 7, the former shogun Tokugawa Yoshinobu left Osaka and withdrew to his own capital city of Edo (Tokyo). Discouraged by his flight, the shogunal forces gave up their defense of Osaka Castle, which fell to imperial forces the following day. In another blow to the shogun, foreign ministers from the western powers decided in early February to recognize the emperors government as the rightful government of Japan. However, this did not prevent samurai on the imperial side from attacking foreigners in several separate incidents as anti-foreigner sentiment was running very high. A New Empire is Born Saigo Takamori, later famed as the Last Samurai, led the emperors troops across Japan to encircle Edo in May of 1869 and the shoguns capital city surrendered unconditionally a short time later. Despite this apparently quick defeat of the shogunal forces, the commander of the shoguns navy refused to surrender eight of his ships, instead heading north, hoping to join forces with the Aizu clans samurai and other northern domain warriors, who were still loyal to the shogunal government. The Northern Coalition was valiant but relied on traditional fighting methods and weaponry. It took the well-armed imperial troops from May to November of 1869 to finally defeat the stubborn northern resistance, but on November 6, the last Aizu samurai surrendered.   Two weeks earlier, the Meiji Period had officially begun, and the former shogunal capital at Edo was renamed Tokyo, meaning eastern capital.   Fallout and Consequences Although the Boshin War was over, fallout from this series of events continued. Die-hards from the Northern Coalition, as well as a few French military advisers, tried to set up a separate Ezo Republic on the northern island of Hokkaido, but the short-lived republic surrendered and winked out of existence on June 27, 1869. In an interesting twist, Saigo Takamori of the very pro-Meiji Satsuma Domain later regretted his role in the Meiji Restoration. He ended up being swept into a leadership role in the doomed Satsuma Rebellion, which ended in 1877 with his death.