Formal Nouns

"Winter" does not name a particular season, such as "the winter of 2008" or "the winter of 2009." It is a general reference to a time of year. It is like other generalized names, such as "dog," which refers to a species of animal, not a particular animal, such as "my dog Rover."

I think you are using the word "formal" incorrectly. What you mean to say is "proper noun".

Here's how I would explain it to your student.

Winter is not unique. There is another winter every year. Each winter is different. So it can't be a proper noun. This is totally different from something like New York. There is only one place in the world that is New York. It is also

Hi, Anon,

You've raised my curiosity about the term "formal noun." The only references for it in Google as a "grammatical" term are in Japanese. What exactly do you mean?

Do you simply mean, "Why is it not capitalized?" or something else?

Best wishes, - A.

CalifJim Winter is not unique. There is another winter every year. Each winter is different. So it can't be a proper noun.

Hi, Jim,
Could we use this argument for "July"?

I agree that "Life can be more difficult in [the] winter" doesn't seem to use "winter" as a proper noun.
But things like "December 21 is officially the first day of

I don't know if there is any logic to this. Days of the week and months of the year are considered proper nouns and so are capitalized. Seasons of the year are not. That's just a quirk of usage.

AvangiCould we use this argument for "July"?

No. Each July is different also, just as each winter is different. The argument I gave was in the form of "what I would tell a student". Apparently, if the student were you, I would not have been able to get by with that explanation very easily. It all depends on the student, of course.

Sometimes you c

Easy - we say "July" has a capital letter because it was named after a person. That gets us home free on August and January too. How we justify the capital letter for Sept-, Oct-, Nov-, and Dec- is another matter. But you picked July and I'm taking my easy out!

Terriffic, GG! Actually, I anticipated this argument.

It's recently come to my attention that doctors as well as teache

AvangiI'd be interested to learn whether our OP has had any success with these approaches.

Me too. On the other hand, can one ever have real success in explaining what is arbitrary?

Thnx. I needed that, but isn't winter telling you about a specific season. (Winter)