Transport - transportation
AWE advises writers in Britain not to use the noun transportation as a more impressive synonym for transport. (The two were more or less equivalent from the earliest times until transportation became a sentence for convicted criminals in the seventeenth century, after which natural delicacy, politeness or squeamishness seems to have meant that most Britons preferred to use the simpler transport. OED notes that in the sense of 'Means of transport or conveyance' (for which AWE prefers transport), transportation is used in the U.S. It is noteworthy that where the British Army had Royal Corps of Transport (now subsumed into the Royal Logistic Corps) and the RAF has the RAF Transport Command, the US forces have the U.S. Transportation Command. In civilian life, the UK has a Department for Transport, the US has a Department of Transportation.
- For a note on the various meanings of the word transport go to transport (meaning).
- For a note on the historical development of the word transportation, go to Transportation (meaning).
- You may also want to see a note on the pronunciation of transport
