A Dictionary of Cont..

junket
word. It is a shortening of the Portuguese form
of the Javanese word jong.
junket. The sweet custardlike food of flavored
milk curded with rennet (Eat your junket,
Deborah!) was so called because it-or something
like it-used to be served on rushes
(Italian giunco, a rush). Rushes were also
spread on the floor or ground at merrymakings
and picnics and hence pleasurable entertainments
and excursions came to be called junkets.
The first meaning is retained in America, though
when the I is capitalized it is a trademark. The
second, however, has undergone a curious, cynical
change and in its commonest use in the
United States today means a trip taken at public
expense by an official or a group of officials
ostensibly to obtain information but actually for
pleasure (Several rules committee members have
opposed the resolutions on the ground that they
kangaroo court. As a term for an unauthorized
or irregular court, especially for a mock court
held by prisoners in jail or an irregularly conducted
court in a frontier district, kangaroo
court is an American term. It is often classified
as informal English but it has become so definitely
the name for irregular courts conducted
in jails by the prisoners themselves that it is
hard to see how else one could identify them
without resorting to circumlocution.
The origin of the term is unknown. It is, apparently,
not Australian but American. Dr.
Charles Earle Funk hazards the auess that since
the term came into use soon after the gold rush
to California, in 1849, the early purpose of
such courts may have been to try those who
jumped claims.
keep. The past tense is kept. The participle is also
kept. Keep may be followed by the -ing form
of a verb, as in keep trying, but not by an infinitive
or a clause. Keep may be followed by an
adjective describing the subject of the verb, as
in I kept cool, or by an adverb describing the
action itself, as in it kept well.
keep a stiff upper lip. As an admonition to be
firm in times of stress and trouble, keep a stifl
upper lip is a cliche. It seems to be an American
phrase, coming into use in the 1830’s. Like
many cliches, its exact meaning is puzzling,
since it is not the upper but the lower lip that
trembles in weakness and self-pity.
keep a weather eye open. As an admonition to
be alert, keep a weather eye open is a cliche,
a tediously jocular assumption of nautical language.
keep body and soul together. As a term for achieving
the bare minimum of subsistence, to keep
K
would provide “nice junket trips” for committee
members).
just; justly. When these words mean fair or according
to justice, the form just is an adjective
and is used to qualify a noun, and the form
justly is an adverb and is used to qualify other
kinds of words, as in the just man was justly
pardoned. When the form just is used as an
adverb and qualifies a word that is not a noun,
it means exactly, merely, or very recently, as in
the man has just been pardoned. The form fustly
is never used to qualify a noun.
juvenile. As an adjective for that which pertains
to, is suitable for, or intended for young persons,
fuvenile is neutral in its connotations
(juvenile fiction), though the frequency of its
use in the phrase juvenile delinquency may
make it in time pejorative. The disparaging
adjectives are childish and puerile. See infantile.
body and soul together or keeping body and
soul together has been overworked. It has been
in constant use for more than two hundred years
and should be avoided.
kept. See keep.
kerb. See curb.
kerosene; paraffin; coal oil. Kerosene is, or was
until recently, the common American word for
heating and illuminating oil distilled from petroleum,
bituminous shale, coal, etc. (She would
put kerosene on her fire to make it burn). The
English word for this substance is paraffin, a
shortening of paraffin oil (He set his face against
para#in and the whole family of oils); but
parafin in the United States means a white or
colorless waxy substance, obtained from crude
petroleum and used for making candles and
forming preservative coatings on paper, homemade
preserves, jellies, and so on. This the
English call parufin wax. The term paraffin
is also used in England for medicinal oils taken
as laxatives, what in America are called mineral
oils.
Coal oil is an old-fashioned American term
for what is now usually called kerosene (This
lamp is especially designed for burning coal oil
and similar substances). But kerosene is now
generally being displaced by fuel oil, very little
oil being used any more for lighting but an
increasing amount for heating.
ketchup. See catchup.
key (island or wharf). See quay.
kick. As a noun or a verb meaning a complaint
or to complain (You’ll get a kick on that, you
wait and see. Aw, they’re always kicking about
something. Who cares?), kick is accepted spoken
English. As a noun meaning a thrill (I get a