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I've been said that in the construct "kind of + noun", if the noun is singular, we should use either "kind of + singular form of the noun" or "kinds of + plural form of the noun".

And if the noun isn't countable we may use either of "kind of" or "kinds of" for it.

Do you agree with that? should we look upon it as a rule please?

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  • Maybe you can give an example of what you're talking about?
    – Robusto
    Commented Jul 13, 2017 at 18:19
  • For example: What kinds of problems do you have? Here we can't use "kind of" for the plural noun "problems", I think.
    – Abbasi
    Commented Jul 13, 2017 at 18:39
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    For countable nouns, you're correct - but note that you may hear the incorrect "...kind of {plural}...". I'd like to see some examples of your thinking with respect to non-countable nouns.
    – Jeff Zeitlin
    Commented Jul 13, 2017 at 19:18
  • According to people and other thread's points, my assumption was correct. Thanks to all.
    – Abbasi
    Commented Jul 13, 2017 at 20:15

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According to the BBC English leaners website and The English-plus University of Toronto site the following rules apply:

  1. We use kind of if the noun is uncountable or a singular countable noun.

Ex What kind of coffee is that? coffee= uncountable

Ex. What kind of apple are you eating? apple= countable/singular

  1. If the noun is plural then we use kinds of

Ex. I like all kinds of animals. animals = plural

Another way of saying all of this is that if the object of the preposition of is singular or uncountable then us kind.

If the object of the preposition of is plural use kinds of

Also, if we use quantifiers like all, several, some , many then we always follow them with kinds of

Ex. I like all kinds of cars.

Finally, according to most dictionaries kind of, type of and sort of all have the same meaning =type or variety of

I hope that helps.

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