a variety of?

Question

There is a variety of transportation systems available in Sri Lanka.Is the above sentence correct ?Please Help

Mister Micawber · Accepted Answer

RavinathIs the above sentence correct ?

It will just cause argument among grammarians. Recast it:

There are several modes of transportation available in Sri Lanka.

CalifJim · Answer

RavinathThere is a variety of transportation systems available in Sri Lanka.Is the above sentence correct ?Please Help

Yes, but There are a variety of transportation systems ... is generally preferred in both BrE and AmE.

See for more on agreement with "variety".

CJ

Ravinath · Answer

Thank  you very much <img class='emoticon' style='Width:19px;Height:19px;' data-delaysrc='https://uat-englishforward-forums-backend.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/Emoticons/1.gif' src='https://uat-englishforward-forums-backend.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/Emoticons/1.gif' alt='Emotion: smile'/>

Anonymous · Answer

CalifJim RavinathThere is a variety of transportation systems available in Sri Lanka.Is the above sentence correct ?Please HelpYes, but There are a variety of transportation systems ... is generally preferred in both BrE and AmE.See Verb agreement for more on agreement with "variety".CJ

Not only that but, transportation is used in AmE while transport is used in BrE.

Fivejedjon · Answer

AnonymousNot only that but, transportation is used in AmE while transport is used in BrE.

I do wish you would stop saying things like that like that. ' Quite a few speakers of BrE use 'transportation'.

Transport' is more common in BrE than 'transportation', as this https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=transportation+systems%2C+transport+systems&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=18&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Ctransportation%20systems%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Ctransport%20systems%3B%2Cc0 shows, but there are 548 citations in the British National Corpus for 'transportation'.

Anonymous · Answer

Where Americans use transportation, http://grammarist.com/usage/briton/ generally prefer transport.

http://grammarist.com/usage/transport-transportation/

Fivejedjon · Answer

AnonymousWhere Americans use transportation, Britons generally prefer transport.

There's quite a difference between that statement (with my underlining of two words) and your previous one: "... transportation is used in AmE while transport is used in BrE." That suggests that 'transportation' is not used in BrE. It is used, though not as often as 'transportation', and it is correct.

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