Capitalized Common Nouns Derived From Proper Nouns
Proper nouns may be used as common nouns, as members of a unique class of common nouns. For example, the corporation Toyota builds vehicles which are colloquially called Toyotas; the fact that the latter is a common noun can be seen in how it can be modified: a Toyota, my Toyota, many Toyotas. Such uses typically arise through ellipsis or metonymy: a car made by Toyota → a Toyota car → a Toyota. Similarly with nationalities and members of religions: America and Christ are proper nouns, American and Christian are not, but retain the capitalization of the proper nouns they are based on. In many languages, such derivations lose the capitalization.
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Famous quotes containing the words common, nouns, derived and/or proper:
“You know, what I very well know, that I bought you. And I know, what perhaps you think I don’t know, you are now selling yourselves to somebody else; and I know, what you do not know, that I am buying another borough. May God’s curse light upon you all: may your houses be as open and common to all Excise Officers as your wifes and daughters were to me, when I stood for your scoundrel corporation.”
—Anthony Henley (d. 1745)
“Children and savages use only nouns or names of things, which they convert into verbs, and apply to analogous mental acts.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Jesus wept; Voltaire smiled. From that divine tear and from that human smile is derived the grace of present civilization.”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)
“A young man is not a proper hearer of lectures on political science; for he is inexperienced in the actions that occur in life, but its discussions start from these and are about these; and, further, since he tends to follow his passions, his study will be vain and unprofitable, because the end that is aimed at is not knowledge but action. And it makes no difference whether he is young in years or youthful in character.”
—Aristotle (384–323 B.C.)