Gram., p 32.  Nor do the remarks of this author, or those of any other that I am acquainted with, remove any part of the difficulty.  We are told by this gentleman, (in language incorrigibly bad,) that, “Nouns which denote the genus, species, or variety of beings or things, are always common; as, tree, the genus; oak, ash, chestnut, poplar, different species; and red oak, white oak, black oak, varieties.”—­Ib., p. 32.  Now, as it requires but one noun to denote either a genus or a species, I know not how to conceive of those “nouns which denote the genus of things,” except as of other confusion and nonsense; and, as for the three varieties of oak, there are surely no “nouns” here to denote them, unless he will have red, white, and black to be nouns.  But what shall we say of—­“the Red sea, the White sea, the Black sea;” or, with two capitals, “Red Sea, White Sea, Black Sea,” and a thousand other similar terms, which are neither proper names unless they are written with capitals, nor written with capitals unless they are first judged to be proper names?  The simple phrase, “the united states,” has nothing of the nature of a proper name; but what is the character of the term, when written with two capitals, “the United States?” If we contend that it is not then a proper name, we make our country anonymous.  And what shall we say to those grammarians who contend, that “Heaven, Hell, Earth, Sun, and Moon, are proper names;” and that, as such, they should be written with capitals?  See Churchill’s Gram., p. 380.

OBS. 7.—­It would seem that most, if not all, proper names had originally some common signification, and that very many of our ordinary words and phrases have been converted into proper names, merely by being applied to particular persons, places, or objects, and receiving the distinction of capitals.  How many of the oceans, seas, lakes, capes, islands, mountains, states, counties, streets, institutions, buildings, and other things, which we constantly particularize, have no other proper names than such as are thus formed, and such as are still perhaps, in many instances, essentially appellative!  The difficulties respecting these will be further noticed below.  A proper noun is the name of some particular individual, group, or people; as, Adam, Boston, the Hudson, the Azores, the Andes, the Romans, the Jews, the Jesuits, the Cherokees.  This is as good a definition as I can give of a proper noun or name.  Thus we commonly distinguish the names of particular persons, places, nations, tribes, or sects, with capitals.  Yet we name the sun, the moon, the equator, and many other particular objects, without a capital; for the word the may give a particular meaning to a common noun, without converting it into a proper name:  but if we say Sol, for the sun, or Luna, for the moon, we write it