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Wed 6 Dec, 2017 01:55 pm
Hi, experts. I usually consider I'm quite good at grammar and then something like this hits me.
In a sentence such as "The current idea of a table includes ALL types of TABLE that have 4 legs...", how am I able to determine if ALL and TABLE are consistent for plurality (or singularity)? ALL appears plural to me and TABLE definitely seems singular, so this seems like an incongruous pairing. Any comments to help me with this? Thanks in advance. (PS - Please ignore other grammatical issues in the sentence. I'm only interested in the specific question asked and the sentence was hurriedly contrived so as to demonstrate my problem.)
In British English, the noun following "all types of" can take the singular/non-countable form as in your example. I believe that American English is inclined to insist on the plural form "all types of tables", and your example would seem incongruous to many AmE users. A formulation such as "all types of car that have a diesel engine" would seem perfectly normal and consistent in British English.
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