Quirks of English

--for those who speak English as their second language or who just want to improve their writing

(Text-only version of Quirks of English)

Shibboleths in English continued

kind of, type of, sort of

These nouns all refer to a group consisting of persons or items that have a common quality or qualities.

• Kind suggests a natural grouping of things with the same innate characteristics.

  What kind of animal is that?

  It also can mean that something is equivalent to or characterized by something.

  Washing your wife's dishes can be a kind of aphrodisiac.

• Type suggests a strong similarity of all items in the group which distinguishes them as a separate class. Each item is characteristic of the group. A type is a subdivision of a particular kind of thing.

  Apples are my favorite type of fruit. I like Courtlands and Winesaps best.

• Sort is synonymous with kind but connotes disparagement.

  What sort of person goes to cockfights?

Formal usage requires that you only use kind of, type of, and sort of (never kind of a, type of a, or sort of a) to describe a class of objects, not one object:

What kind of community do you desire for a permanent residence?

That type of roofing material will not hold up in our winter-summer cycles.

The sort of newspaper you read indicates your taste for fact or gossip.

Formal usage also requires that you not use kind of and sort of as adverbs equivalent to rather, a little, or somewhat:

I feel a little (or very) tired after taking the redeye home.

The game was rather boring but I stayed to the end.

Note that a sort, a type, or a kind is a class and, therefore, should be singular. Use this and that, not these and those. Use sort, kind, and type, not sorts, kinds, and types.

I do not like that type of apple.

Do not use "Those types of apples" unless several categories of apples have been referred to:

We grow Cortlands, Macintoshes, and Northern Spys. Those types of apples are great for baking.

If you need the noun to be plural but there is only one class or category, reverse the order, putting the noun first:

Technologies of this kind are advancing rapidly.

Publishing Services is the kind of resource that is indispensable to technical writers.

Test yourself.

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Last updated: 1/20/2009