as "So-and-so is the leading subject of etc.," the
combined name has a connotation, but then it is a general and not a
singular name.

COLLECTIVE NAMES, as distinguished from General Names. A collective
name is a name for a number of similar units taken as a whole--a name
for a totality of similar units, as army, regiment, mob, mankind,
patrimony, personal estate.

A group or collection designated by a collective name is so far like
a class that the individual objects have something in common: they
are not heterogeneous but homogeneous. A mob is a collection of human
beings; a regiment of soldiers; a library of books.

The distinction lies in this, that whatever is said of a collective
name is said about the collection as a whole, and does not apply to
each individual; whatever is said of a general name applies to each
individual. Further, the collective name can be predicated only of
the whole group, as a whole; the general name is predicable of each,
distributively. "Mankind has been in existence for thousands of
years;" "The mob passed through the streets." In such expressions as
"An honest man's the noblest work of God," the subject is functionally
a collective name.

A collective name may be used as a general name when it is extended on
the ground of what is common to all such totalities as it designates.
"An excited mob is dangerous;" "An army without discipline is
useless." The collective name is then "connotative" of the common
characters of the collection.

MATERIAL OR SUBSTANTIAL NAMES. The question has been raised whether
names of material, gold, water, snow, coal, are general or collective
singular. In the case of pieces or bits of a material, it is true that
any predicate made concerning the material, such as "Sugar is sweet,"
or "Water quenches thirst," applies to any and every portion. But
the separate portions are not individuals in the whole signified by
a material name as individuals are in a class. Further, the name of
material cannot be predicated of a portion as a class name can be of
an individual. We cannot say, "This is a sugar". When we say, "This is
a piece of sugar," sugar is a collective name for the whole material.
There are probably words on the borderland between general names and
collective names. In such expressions as "This is a _coal_," "The
bonnie _water_ o' Urie," the material name is used as a general
name. The real distinction is between the distributive use and the
collecti