If you can't be kind to people, at least be kind to words

"Kinda’ is the sorta slang that annoys some pedants when they see it written on the page, but I think it's kinda dope.

Many songwriters have praised the virtues of their kinda town, their kinda girl or their kinda hedgehog. In a song, kinda is a lyrical condensation that sounds much smoother and more enticing than, for instance, "my species/class/variety of girl/town/hedgehog".

Apart from being a synonym for "type of", kinda is also used frequently in place of "a little bit", as in "That crocodile is kinda vicious" or "That bunny is kinda cute".

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Even before it was conveniently resized as kinda, speakers of "proper" English tended to frown on the use of "kind of" as an adverb, but these objections were stifled when Shakespeare conferred dignity upon it by having Hamlet say to Horatio: "In my heart there was a kind of fighting that would not let me sleep."

What every new or contested word needs, if it is to prosper, is a career boost from a respected writer. Maybe the die-hards still complaining about the use of "gift" as a verb will roll over and accept it when JM Coetzee allows it into his lexicon and writes a sequel called Gifting the Barbarians.

The abbreviation of "kind of" received an official blessing from novelist Charles Dickens in 1850. In David Copperfield, Dickens has his character Mr Peggotty say (the spelling is immaterial; it was to match Peggotty's regional dialect): "Theer's been kiender a blessing fell upon us."

Other writers took up the cause, changing the spelling from kiender to kinder and eventually kinda, which remains with us today.

In 1974, Italian chocolate baron Michele Ferrero invented a child-magnet that combined a toy and a sweet in an alluring foil-wrapped package. Originally called Kinder Sorpresa (from the German for "child" and the Italian for "surprise"), this clever product soon became known as the Kinder Egg.

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Those unfamiliar with German might have thought the name meant "a certain type of egg". I used to think it meant a much kinder egg than the sort laid by hens, because hen's eggs as a rule do not break open to reveal a rich nugget of chocolate as well as the tiny interlocking pieces of build-it-yourself combine harvester.

"Kind" (a species) and "kind" (a compassionate way of feeling and behaving) come from the same place. In one of those ironic twists of meaning that English likes to dazzle us with, "kind" originally meant "natural".

Later the word branched out into the two senses in which we use it today, one of these being sweet, friendly, benevolent, generous and thoughtful.

Cynics might not see a natural progression from human nature to the doing of good things, but I find it kinda encouraging that language made this link. I like to believe that humankind is essentially kind.

If we can't always be kind to each other, perhaps we can at least try to be kind to words. We should not torture words by making them perform tasks for which they were not designed. But if an ambitious word such as "gift" wishes to advance beyond its wrapping, why not let it? It could be kinda liberating.

Wishing you a peaceful and grammatical holiday season and much kindness in the New Year.

E-mail your observations on words and language to Sue de Groot on degroots@sundaytimes.co.za or follow her on Twitter: @deGrootS1