Page:A Desk-Book of Errors in English.djvu/139

 or cargo. These words are pronounced alike. Compare.

kibosh: A slang term for "humbug." To put the kibosh on, a slang phrase for "to put an end to or stop anything."

kick is not used instead of "protest" by careful speakers, notwithstanding the fact that George Eliot introduced it into literature (see Silas Marner, ch. iv. p. 52). The term is slang.

kid: A common vulgarism for "child" and as such one the use of which can not be too severely condemned.

kid on: A vulgarism used in England for "humbug; hoax; or, try to induce one to believe something that is not true:"—no kid, no kidding: Vulgar terms for "without any humbug." Undesirable locutions.

killing. Compare.

kinder: For kind of, pronounced as one word, is merely a low vulgarism. The same remark holds of sorter similarly used for "sort of." See.

kindness: When used in the plural is sometimes objected to on the ground that kindness is an abstract noun. "He wishes to express gratitude for many kindnesses." Nothing is commoner than the making of abstract nouns into concrete in this way; "affinities"; "charities"; "His tender mercies are over all His works." Besides, by "many kindnesses" is meant,