English has a few suffixes that can make abstract nouns out of adjectives: There’s the relatively rare –cy, which turns fluent into fluency and idiot into idiocy. There’s the more common –ty or –ity ...

Think about concrete for a second – even if you weren't already thinking about it. Can you picture it? Can you feel its hardness? Do you see a driveway, sidewalk or building in your mind? Concrete is ...

Here's a little English grammar lesson for readers, free of charge. Today's lesson concerns nouns. You may remember this from your schooling: A noun is the name of a person, place, thing, thought, or ...

OF ALL the novelties of France under President Nicolas Sarkozy, one of the more arresting is the decline of the abstract noun. In the past, no French leader would make a speech without liberal doses ...

Michael Loukanov from Bulgaria, writing to the BBC ELT message board, comments: Sometimes there are some difficult situations in which you cannot be sure whether the things you are referring to are ...

English has a few suffixes that can make abstract nouns out of adjectives. There's the relatively rare –cy, which turns fluent into fluency and idiot into idiocy, and there's the more common –ty or ...

Some nouns, particularly abstract nouns, have to be followed by a prepositional phrase in order to demonstrate what they relate to. They cannot just stand by themselves. There is usually only one ...