carry on vs curtail

carry on

verb
  • To continue or proceed as before. 

  • To act or behave; especially to misbehave so as to attract attention. 

  • To talk continuously about, often in an excessively excited way 

  • To continue, maintain or pursue (:an activity or enterprise) 

  • To have an illicit sexual or flirtatious relationship. 

  • To take baggage or luggage onto an airplane, rather than check it. 

curtail

verb
  • To limit or restrict, keep in check. 

  • To shorten or abridge the duration of something; to truncate. 

noun
  • A scroll termination, as of a step, etc. 

How often have the words carry on and curtail occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )