Trying to help my son with his homework. What is an "exact noun" and what the heck makes it different from any old regular noun?



TIA!!

I think it is a more specific noun versus a general noun

girl / Shelly

country / England

does that help?

That much I understand, but his homework paper asks him to underline the noun in the sentence and finish it with an "exact noun", but some of those blanks don't call for a proper noun. For example:

The campers build a ____________________

The boys carry the ___________________

Now, the logical answers to those (to me) would be "fire" and "wood", but are those considered "exact nouns"???

ditto to above

with excellent example here:

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_a_exact_noun

wood < generic

firewood < exact

kindling <exact

tent < generic

pup tent < exact

lean-to <exact

cabana < exact (and are they having a party in there!?!??)

DING! Lightbulb is on! Many thanks Doug!!!

And just for the record, I did Google it first, but all the examples were with the proper nouns, and it just wasn't applying to our situation here.

Thanks again!

The boys carry the railroad ties.

The campers build a bonfire. (that's seen for miles around!)

Isn't it funny how things are different then when we were in school? Never heard of such things! We go through that stuff too....thank goodness I have an 11 year old short of genius son! (He had to help my 18 year old balance his checkbook!)

I learn so much through my 10 year old! I swear I didn't do half the stuff he did when I was in school. And here is the sad part - at 32 I am back in college and when I do my Algebra homework, he looks and says....I know how to do that! ACK! Makes me feel really stupid! So glad he is getting a great education, though, I thank God for great teachers!

exact nouns are the same as specific nouns, i.e., Tom, General Motors, etc.

Thanks everyone for your time and responses.

Again, his paper wasn't calling for proper nouns, ie names, places, etc., that's why I was confused as to what the heck it wanted, but Doug's second post pretty much cleared things up for us. I hope. We'll see when the grade comes home.

So today my first graders hw was to identify the "telling word" in each sentence. I was a 1st grade teacher about 7 years ago and I have never heard about "telling nouns!" The sentences were Zack slides and Zack runs and I missed you mom. Seriously, Wth?!? I actually called another mom in the class and after conferring with her 2nd grader we decided the "telling word" meant tell what he was doing. I mean seriously - why not call it the action word or something?!

Okay, thanks for letting me rant

Sooooo, the verb? How odd!

i think they call it telling words to make it easier for the student to understand...but it sure does make it harder for the parent!