Sort vs. Kind and type

rblajev · Post by **rblajev** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 2:04 pm

Hello,

I have another question.

My student wrote a sentence with this as part of it:

"and a large range of steel sorts, such as..."

The sentence in itself is too long and complex and will have to be revised. However, I have marked that sorts is not the best word choice.
My initial reason is that I simply never hear it spoken like this. Or, is this phrasing okay in British English? I am supposed to defer to British English, so I need to know if this is one of those cases.

I indicated that types would be better here. Is one really better than the other?

thanks!

fluffyhamster · Post by **fluffyhamster** » Tue Dec 18, 2007 12:15 am

Google can't explain, but it can imply...

"steel types" 36,600; "types of steel" 308,000
"steel kinds" 344; "kinds of steel" 288,000
"steel sorts" 174; "sorts of steel" 104,000

Not necessarily BrE, BTW.

rblajev · Post by **rblajev** » Tue Dec 18, 2007 9:47 am

thank you fluffyhamster.

I have decided that this is going to be one of those cases where I simply tell the student that although I cannot provide a grammatical reason against it, we don't use the word in that way.

Your google search confirms the rarity of that usage.

Take care!