I'm currently reading a marvellous little book Tudor-Stuart Views on the Growth, Status, and Destiny of the English Language by J. L. Moore (part of the Studien zur englischen Philologie series), Halle a. S., 1910. Just noticed the bookplate of a previous owner, Mr Douglas Bush, which reads:

Ex Libris
--*--
Sumtyme my booke is vnto A God,
Sumtyme I throwe it from me A rodd.
All kynde of bookes, good, and badd,
Sayntish and Diuelish, that ar to be badd.
Owlde, and yunge,
For matter and tunge,
Wheresoeuer they dwell,
In Heauen, or in Hell.
--*--
Douglas Bush

Alas, I cannot say all kind of books, though many can. I'll leave googling as an exercise to the reader.

Most of the quotations from Tudor and Stuart books are in the original orthography and punctuation. It's been fun seeing how the language has changed so much in a mere five centuries.

Another, from p.55f.:

quote:

[Thomas] Nashe continued the controversy in the Epistle to the Reader prefixed to the second (1594) edition of Christ's Tears Over Jerusalem (reprinted by Collier, No. 7 of the Miscellaneous Tracts, Temp. Eliz. & Jac. I). His critics allege against him, he says, "my boistrous compound wordes, and ending my Italionate coyned verbes all in ize".) He would justify the former by the fact that "Our English tongue, of all languages, most swarmeth with the single money of monasillables, which are the scandal of it ... Therefore ... I ... had them to the compounders immediately, and exchanged them foure into one, and others into more, according to the Greek, French, Spanish, and Italian". His verbs in ize are "growne in generall request with every good poet. Besides, they carrie farre more state with them, then any other".

What a lovely time to read and write, before the minions of immutability had had time to dump all the words and grammar into setting concrete.

I particularly like Nashe's subordinate clause modifying monasillables instead of money, and Moore's punctuation outside of inverted commas.

[Fixed spelling.]

This message has been edited. Last edited by: zmježd,

quote:

Moore's punctuation outside of inverted commas.

Which, of course looks pretty standard to a modern British reader.

standard

But not to the Yankee picker of solecistic nits. Another thing I noticed was that commas were left out of the title of the book on the title page.

I did find 760 citations for "all kind of book" on Google. Some of them, however, were simply typos, though. For example, the first link was to an Amazon book review, and the reviewer said, "I would describe it as high-end, gourmet, and highly likeable by all kind of book." She must have meant "booklovers." However, the next one seemed legitimate: "I collected all kind of book and encyclopaedia on animal life."

quote:

"I would describe it as high-end, gourmet, and highly likeable by all kind of book."

Assuming to citation is accurate, this is an example of a sentence that is crying out for extra punctation and an article. I suggest:

"I would describe it as (a) 'high-end, gourmet, and highly likeable by all' kind of book."