Type of cars

Question

Hi,Is the following correct English?What type of cars do you like.Maybe it'sWhat types of cars do you like?What types of car do you like?What type of car do you like?Thanks!

GPY · Accepted Answer

I prefer these:

What type of car do you like? (anticipating only one type as the answer)
What types of car do you like? (anticipating several types as the answer)

MustAsk · Answer

Thank you for your reply!

Would you consider "What type of cars..." incorrect?

GPY · Answer

MustAskThank you for your reply! Would you consider "What type of cars..." incorrect?

Yes, or substandard at best.

"What types of cars" seems less wrong, but still inferior to "What types of car" in my opinion.

Meteorquake · Answer

I'm okay with the 2,3,4, with 2 being less good

One practical reason for the inferiority of "What types of cars do you like" (for me) is that the 's' of 'cars' doesn't run so well into the 'd' of 'do', as well as being a repetition of the prior 's' on types.

d

Ozzourti · Answer

"what types of car" or "what kinds of car" produces no results on https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=what+types+of+car%2Cwhat+types+of+cars%2Cwhat+kinds+of+car%2Cwhat+kinds+of+cars&case_insensitive=on&year_start=1800&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t4%3B%2Cwhat%20types%20of%20cars%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Bwhat%20types%20of%20cars%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BWhat%20types%20of%20cars%3B%2Cc0%3B.t4%3B%2Cwhat%20kinds%20of%20cars%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Bwhat%20kinds%20of%20cars%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BWhat%20kinds%20of%20cars%3B%2Cc0

Try replacing 'car' with 'book'. "What types of book does he write?" sounds odd to me.

Strange, isn't it?

I might have to give it more thought.

Grammarfreak · Answer

Right or wrong.... it's my opinion.
Either "kind", or "type", or be it singular or plural, the original sentences sounded unusual to my ear from a conversation standpoint. If we can afford it, I am sure we all like Mercedes,BWM, Audi and the exotic Italian sports car. We can sensibly ask people " What kind of foods / movie do you like?", and it sounds logically reasonable to the ear (for mine anyway). But from a syntactical level, "What type of cars do you like ?", which is perfectly grammatical, however, seems to convey an impractical meaning. Perhaps this may be a more sensible question to ask " What kind of car do you like to drive if you hit the lottery ?"

It is just my two cents..

GPY · Answer

ozzourti"what types of car" or "what kinds of car" produces no results on Google Ngram Viewer.

On that product, "no results" means less than a certain number (I can't remember what the number is*).

I have noticed that constructions like "what types of cars" are common amongst native speakers, possibly as common as my preferred "what types of car". I notice this because it grates somewhat for me.

* I found it... at https://books.google.com/ngrams/info it says "we only consider ngrams that occur in at least 40 books".

MustAsk · Answer

I'm bringing an old thread up because I have another question. Would you say

What type of people.... or
What types of people.... ?

MustAsk · Answer

I not sure if this got seen by anyone, so I'm updating my last examples:

You'll never guess what type of people use Google
You'll never guess what types of people use Google

The word people is in the plural which does not does not accord with "type of car" structure where 'car' is in the singular.

Grammarfreak · Answer

To help eliminate your doubts, I would like to offer this suggestion. Most of the time in conversations, people assume
"what" as singular, so use "type", "sort" , or "kind".
What is your name ?
What is his occupation ?
What is your address ?
What was she wearing ?
What is the occasion ?

MustAskThe word people is in the plural which does not does not accord with "type of car" structure where 'car' is in the singular.

# 1 is what I would use.
You'll never guess what type of people use Google

Type of cars

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