GypsyHomesteader Posted August 7, 2015 Share Posted August 7, 2015 Maybe it's always been there but I don't remember learning it in grammar school. My mom doesn't remember it either. She remembers being taught 'idea' words are adjectives. I know why it's a noun, I just don't know when it was actually declared a noun... is it more recent? The Google (or my Google skill) failed me in this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Monica_in_Switzerland Posted August 7, 2015 Share Posted August 7, 2015 It's always been there fore me (age 30something). It is a tricky category- they are abstract, so perhaps harder for a child to grasp, and words in the same family are used as adjectives: patient (adj) vs patience (n), honest (adj) vs honesty, just (adj) vs justice. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ausmumof3 Posted August 7, 2015 Share Posted August 7, 2015 Yep This was new to me in first language lessons. Although I don't think australian public education is much into grammar. The most we ever got was a noun is a naming word. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rachel Posted August 7, 2015 Share Posted August 7, 2015 It was always there for me too. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DhanyaCali Posted August 7, 2015 Share Posted August 7, 2015 Freedom, it is a thing, just not a tangible thing! I was homeschooling my neighbor's kid in English a few years back and there's a proper term for 'em but it escapes me now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EKS Posted August 7, 2015 Share Posted August 7, 2015 I always thought that adding "idea" to the definition was redundant as an idea is a kind of thing. I remember learning the idea part of the definition sometime during my childhood. It must have been sometime after I had heard the Schoolhouse Rock noun song because I've always felt the idea part sounded tacked on. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kathryn Posted August 7, 2015 Share Posted August 7, 2015 I'm 35 and I learned it in elementary school. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Desert Strawberry Posted August 7, 2015 Share Posted August 7, 2015 I agree that ideas are things. there was always a little discussion about intangible things, so i was happy for the clarification of idea. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
creekland Posted August 7, 2015 Share Posted August 7, 2015 I'm 47 and learned that a noun was a person, place, thing, or idea way back in early elementary school - no clue which grade. I went to a ps in NY. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ellie Posted August 7, 2015 Share Posted August 7, 2015 always for me, too, and I'm older than most of you. :hat: 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jean in Newcastle Posted August 7, 2015 Share Posted August 7, 2015 I'm in my 50's and it's always been there for me. We even did diagramming in school. I don't think it was part of the definition: A noun was a person, place or thing. But they always explained that things could be concrete or abstract. I seem to remember "love" being used as an example of abstract. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J-rap Posted August 7, 2015 Share Posted August 7, 2015 I just assumed idea words were always thought of as nouns. I began learning grammar in the 60's in California, and a noun was a person, place, thing, or idea. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cosmos Posted August 7, 2015 Share Posted August 7, 2015 Maybe it's always been there but I don't remember learning it in grammar school. My mom doesn't remember it either. She remembers being taught 'idea' words are adjectives. I don't understand the bolded. In the sentence "Love is blind", "love" would be considered an adjective? I learned it as "person, place, or thing" but always with an explanation that some "things" were intangible. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UCF612 Posted August 7, 2015 Share Posted August 7, 2015 I am 33 and was taught noun as a person, place or thing. I don't recall idea being part of the definition at all. I discovered it when teaching my oldest grammar in first grade. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CAtoVA Posted August 7, 2015 Share Posted August 7, 2015 A noun was always a person, place, thing or idea up through the mid 80's at least (ps in CA). Look at Schoolhouse Rock from the 70's, LOL. The idea is abstract like justice, freedom or love—I guess it's really a type of "thing," an abstract thing. I am noticing in my own DC's curricula it often is not there and a noun is defined as just a person, place or thing. I think this is a "dumbing down" (just my humble opinion) as if kids today can't understand anything abstract on its own and/or remember four items. I cannot see how an idea like freedom is an adjective (?) I have never seen that before. I always teach a noun as a person, place, thing or (abstract) idea. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dirty ethel rackham Posted August 7, 2015 Share Posted August 7, 2015 We just didn't call them ideas, but abstract "things." 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
8circles Posted August 7, 2015 Share Posted August 7, 2015 I didn't learn "person, place, thing, idea". But we talked about abstract things being included. I've always thought the definition was so clumsy. Person are things, places are things, ideas are things, animals are things, plants are things, etc. Nouns are names of things. Why do we need the details? It just seems silly. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fairfarmhand Posted August 7, 2015 Share Posted August 7, 2015 I am 35 and it was taught when I was in school. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GypsyHomesteader Posted August 7, 2015 Author Share Posted August 7, 2015 Interesting. I went to ps in Cali too and don't remember idea. Maybe it was a thing too. Though I have to say that my school wasn't big on grammar. My mom went to ps in Cali too. She may have been taught about the abstract 'thing' instead of idea. It doesn't really matter to me, I was just curious! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tanikit Posted August 7, 2015 Share Posted August 7, 2015 We were taught about abstract nouns at school - I'm 36 now. Also putting a "the" or "a/an" in front of it as a single concept helps. The patience required to... The love that... The honesty in that statement... You can also add adjectives to these words. I have eternal patience. His brutal honesty was evident - then it is clearer that they are nouns. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wintermom Posted August 7, 2015 Share Posted August 7, 2015 I learned "person, place or thing." I think it wasn't until my dc were school age that I ever heard "person, place, thing or idea," and this was only through American TV and educational material. I still don't think it's widely used in Canada. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jean in Newcastle Posted August 7, 2015 Share Posted August 7, 2015 I learned "person, place or thing." I think it wasn't until my dc were school age that I ever heard "person, place, thing or idea," and this was only through American TV and educational material. I still don't think it's widely used in Canada. I think they just added that later because a lot of kids do have a problem with abstract nouns. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Butter Posted August 7, 2015 Share Posted August 7, 2015 I am 37. I remember when they told us in about 4th grade that nouns were persons, places, things, OR ideas. Up until then they hadn't told us about the idea part. It was always there but deemed to complicated for little kids to learn apparently. When I complained to my mom about this, she told me that, yes, ideas have always been nouns. She learned that in school. She is 69. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paige Posted August 7, 2015 Share Posted August 7, 2015 I was taught "person, place, or thing," in elementary school and ideas were categorized as abstract things. When I was a little older, I heard the phrase, "person, place, thing, or idea," and I use that for my kids even though I think it's redundant because it is clear. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mommaduck Posted August 7, 2015 Share Posted August 7, 2015 In my 40's; it's always been there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jean in Newcastle Posted April 11, 2023 Share Posted April 11, 2023 I'd say that seven years later is extremely late for the party. Zombie thread. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ellie Posted April 12, 2023 Share Posted April 12, 2023 (edited) It's always been there. #D'oh! I forgot to check the date and didn't realize I joined a zombie thread. Edited April 12, 2023 by Ellie Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goldenecho Posted May 5, 2023 Share Posted May 5, 2023 (edited) Usually anywhere from 4th to 8th grade is when "idea" is taught as being a noun. At least in the past they usually didn't teach "idea" until later grades because it's a harder concept. But the parts of speech have always been about how a word is used. For instance, if I have "red" hair...red is an adjective. But in the last part of the sentence where I talked about how "red is an adjective"...there red is a noun because it's the subject of the sentence. I can spray something (and spray is a verb there). But if I am talking about how the "spray" hit me, then it's a noun. And in the phrase "spray bottle," spray is an adjective because it's describing bottle (a noun). Ideas could always be nouns. You can love someone, or talk about love and what love means. Parts of speech have more to do with how the word is used in a sentence than what "type" of word it is. If it's the subject, it's a noun. If it's what the subject is doing (or being), it's a verb. If it's describing the subject, it's an adjective. Edited May 5, 2023 by goldenecho 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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