A contributor to the Forum (Juliette) writes:  "I am so sick of people using the expressions kind of  and sort of  incorrectly as fillers in speech!  I can't stand it.  People use it all the time on cooking shows – e.g., 'You sort of spread the frosting on.'  Well, are you sort of spreading it on, or are you actually spreading it on?  Also you hear 'creative' people using the expressions in interviews – e.g., 'It sort of gave me the chance to kind of try sort of new roles.'  Ahhh!  Can't you simply say:  'It gave me the chance to try new roles'?  Because it didn't sort of or kind of – it DID!"

I agree.  The use of sort of and kind of when referring to absolutes is like the use of "y'know" and "like":  "It's like, y'know, sort of annoying."  One cannot "sort of spread the frosting," "kind of fail a test," or "sort of get fired from a job" any more than one can be sort of dead or kind of pregnant.  And when people tell me that something is "sort of expensive," I want to tell them to stop equivocating:  Is it expensive or not?  Unfortunately, we live in an age in which people seem to believe that any pause in speech is a symptom of insecuruty or uncertainty.  Thus, they fill the gap with meaningless sounds.  Never mind that utterances punctuated regularly by "sort of," "kind of," "y'know," and "like" produce quite the opposite effect, making the speaker sound even more insecure and uncertain – and immature as well.