Discussion Groups / English Usage / February 2010

They probably mean usages like "these/those kind of issues", which are
extremely common, but frowned upon by many.

Regards,
Ekkehard

It appears to be a descendant an old genitive phrase of /kin/. The
online OED entry for /kind/ is very long and confusing, but the relevant
section, says:

[quote]
14. a. Kind of. Later usage transposes the syntactical relation in such
constructions as all kinds of trees = 'trees of all kinds', this kind of
thing = 'a thing of this kind'. For the history of this, see KIN1 6b.
 As the original genitive phrase was in attrib. relation to the
following n., the natural tendency is still to treat all kind of, no
kind of, what kind of, etc. (like ME. alkin, nakin, whatkin), and, hence
also, the simple kind of (colloq. kind o', kind a, kinder), as an
attrib. or adj. phrase qualifying the n.
[end quote]

At KIN1 6b, it says:

[quote]
  {dag}b. In this sense, chiefly in a genitive phrase, dependent upon
following n. Cf. KIND n. 14.
 In OE. the genitive might be either sing. or pl., according to sense;
e.g. ælces or {asg}ehwylces cynnes déor, animals of each or every kind,
moni{asg}ra cynna scipu, ships of many kinds, {th}reora cynna treowu,
trees of three kinds. In ME., cynnes became kunnes, kynnes, kyns, kins;
cynna became kunne, kynne, kyn, kin. For the latter the genitive sing.
was often substituted; and conversely, kynne, kin, appeared in the
sing., esp. in the north, where it was prob. viewed as an uninflected
genitive, as in man son, fader broder, etc. The preceding adjectival
word agreeing with kynnes, kins, dropped its gentival s somewhat early;
sometimes it was transferred to kinnes, thus alle skynnes (= alles
kynnes, alle kynnes), no skynnes, etc. Usually however the two words
were at length combined, as in the later forms alkin(s, anykin(s,
fele-kin(s, manykin(s, nokin(s or nakin(s, otherkin(s, sere-kin(s,
swilkin(s, same-kin(s, thiskin(s, whilk-kin (hwil-kyn), whatkin(s. Few
of these came down to 1500, though in the north whatkin is found in the
16th c., and survives in Sc. and north Eng. as what'n, beside siccan
from swilk kin.
 The reduction of kin to its simple uninflected form may have been
assisted by the equivalent use of manere (MANNER) from OFr., which is
thus found, as threo maner men = men of three kinds or sorts. In this,
at an early period, we find of inserted: an manere of fisce, al maner o
suet spices, the syntactical relation between the words being thus
reversed, and although this appears to have rarely extended to kin
itself, it affected its later representative kind, also sort, species,
etc., so that we now say 'all kinds of things' = things of all kinds.
This may have been facilitated by the fact that in the order of the
words (as distinct from their syntactical relation) 'al kins thinges' is
more closely represented by 'all kinds of things' than by 'things of all
kind'. See KIND, MANNER, SORT, etc., and, for the special combinations
of kin with preceding adj., ALKIN, ANY-KYN, etc.
[end quote]

Whew!