Bryson's Dictionary of Troublesome Words - Bill Bryson [43]
jeep, Jeep. Use jeep generally for army vehicles, but Jeep specifically for the brand name of cars produced by the German-American company Daimler-Chrysler.
jerry-built, jury-rigged. Occasionally confused, as here: “In the fall of 1891, he jerry-rigged what’s believed to be the first football headgear, a chamois skullcap secured by a chin strap” (Sports Illustrated). Something that is built cheaply and sloppily, without regard to quality, is jerry-built. Something that is made in haste, with whatever materials are at hand, usually as a temporary or emergency measure, is jury-rigged.
Johns Hopkins (note s on both) is the name of the university and medical center in Baltimore.
join together, link together. The Bible and marriage ceremonies notwithstanding, join together is almost always tautological. Similarly linked together, even when written by as eminent an authority as C. T. Onions: “The first members of a group linked together by one of the above conjunctions . . .” (in Modern English Syntax).
Joneses, keeping up with the. Not Jones’ or Jones’s or other common variants.
Jonson, Ben, not Johnson, for the English dramatist and poet.
Juilliard School of Music, New York City. Note Jui-.
just deserts, not desserts. The expression has nothing to do with the sweet course after dinner. It comes from the French for deserve, which may help you to remember that it has just one middle s.
K
Katharine’s Docks, St., London. Note the unusual spelling of Katharine.
Kerrey, Kerry. Confusion sometimes arises in distinguishing between the politicians Bob Kerrey of Nebraska and John Kerry of Massachusetts. Both are Democrats and both were born in 1943. Kerry is a former lieutenant governor of Massachusetts and at the time of writing was serving his third term as a U.S. senator for the state. Kerrey is a former governor of Nebraska and was a U.S. senator for the state until he retired in 2000 to become president of New School University in New York City. In 2001, Kerrey admitted having been part of a military action in Vietnam in 1969 in which innocent civilians were murdered by U.S. troops.
Khrushchev, Nikita. Few errors make a publication look more careless than misspelling the name of a world leader, and few leaders’ names have been misspelled more frequently or variously than that of the late Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. Note that the surname has three h’s.
kibbutz, kibitz. The first refers to an Israeli communal settlement (plural kibbutzim). The second is to watch at cards or some other activity, often in an interfering manner.
kind. “Those are the kind of numbers that easily solve the mystery” (New York Daily News). Kind and kinds and their antecedents should always enjoy what grammarians call concord. Just as we say “this hat” but “those hats,” so the writer above should have said, “Those are the kinds of numbers” or “This is the kind of number.” Shakespeare, for what it is worth, didn’t always observe the distinction. In King Lear he wrote, “These kind of knaves . . .”
kindergarten, but kindergartner (not -gartener).
Kingsford-Smith (hyphen) for the airport in Sydney, Australia, but Sir Charles Kingsford Smith (no hyphen) for the aviator after whom it was named.
kith and kin. Your kin are your relatives. Your kith are your relatives and acquaintances. Individually the words are antiquated. Together they are hackneyed.
Kmart for the store group. The formal name is Kmart Corporation.
Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath for the British honorary title. Note the second the.
knot. “The yacht was doing about nine knots an hour, according to Mr. Starr” (New York Times). Because knot means “nautical miles an hour,” the time element is implicit in it. The sentence as written is telling us that the yacht was progressing at nine nautical miles an hour an hour. Either delete “an hour” or change knots to nautical miles. A nautical mile equals 1.15 land miles, and in