"This kind of things" vs "These kinds of thing"

I have a question about the following text:

Last week Alex Knapp at Forbes published an article criticizing my Nikola Tesla comic. I don't normally respond to these kinds of thing, but since it's' Forbes I figured a proper response was in order.

I would rather say "this kind of things" rather than the version in the text above.

Solution 1:

Kind(s) of (like sort of, breed of, manner of, variety of, and so on) is slippery. It is usually interpreted as referring to the concept of something: uncountable, and taking a singular object. On the other hand, it can also refer to a set of them— or to a set of concepts— and the object would thus be plural.

I would expect to see

this kind of dog = one sub-type of the type of animal known as "dog"

these kinds of dog = multiple sub-types of the type of animal known as "dog"

these kinds of dogs = multiple sub-types of the multiple types of animal known as "dog"

and not so much

this kind of dogs

but I cannot ascribe this to any particular grammatical rule, only familiarity (in American English) and style. After all, in informal conversation we could ask

What kind of books do you like?

and expect a plural answer, as if you had asked

What kinds of book do you like?

which would sound stilted unless you were trying to make small talk with a librarian or bookbinder about classifications of books.

We also find similar constructions in more formal or archaic English, e.g.

uncommon is that sort of men that say in their heart, "There is no God." (tr. from St. Augustine of Hippo)

As an aside, I love TheOatmeal, but do not demand precise use of language from web comics.

Solution 2:

Please accept my apologies (or my apology, as the case may be :-)) for arriving so late: I've only just bumped into this grammatical situation, I did a search and none of the answers seen here really works for me.

My view is that, no matter how "jarring" the mixing of numbers may sound, in this case - or, should I say this kind of sentences? - what dictates the grammatical structure should be the meaning of the noun used as the object.

So, "kind" is a set and, of course, a set is made of many similar things: by definition, it cannot possibly be made of only one thing, no matter how similar the units are to one another. As often encountered in mathematical discussions, one speaks of a "set of numbers" and not of a "set of number"; a "set of functions" and not of a "set of function" and so on. You may give this set a name such as, animal, plant, mineral. Then, if using the name, it would make sense referring to it in the singular (e.g. what kind of animal is it?). Therefore, if the author is talking about just a type of objections received from Forbes, then he is perfectly entitled to write "this kind of things" whereas, more than one type (i.e. a grammatical objection, an objection about design and an objection about content) would suggest the use of the form "these kinds of things".

For those who advocate usage as the guiding principle, then Prof. Google tells us that, on this date, people use this expression as follows:

1. this kind of thing: 136,000,000 hits
2. these kinds of things: 24,900,000
3. this kind of things: 10,900,000
4. these kinds of thing: 1,960,000

So, the most used, or most popular, is not necessarily the most logical, but wins the day. Which just goes to show that the majority of people are irrational! :-)