'Permissible - though an indication of laziness - in conversation, nice is to be avoided in serious writing <Eric Partridge, 1957).

Henry Tilney, the hero of Jane Austen's novel Northanger Abbey (1818), has criticised Miss Catherine Norland for describing a book as 'nice':

'I am sure,' cried Catherine, 'I did not mean to say anything wrong;
but it is a nice book, and why should not I call it so?'          

'Very true,' said Henry, ' and this is a very nice day, and we are taking a very nice walk, and you are two very nice young ladies. Oh! it is a very nice word indeed! — it  does for everything.

 Originally perhaps it was applied only to express neatness, propriety, delicacy, or refinement; - people were nice in their dress, in their sentiments, or their choice. But now every commendation on every subject is comprised in that one word.'

'While, in fact,' cried his sister, 'it ought only to be applied to you, without any commendation at all. You are more nice than wise. Come, Miss Morland, let us leave him to meditate aver our faults in the utmost propriety of diction...'

Intensifiers

Intensifying adjectives and adverbs should not be overused! Many colloquial intensifiers are vulgar:

blasted   bleeding  bloody sodding (all British)  goddam (American) damn  damned

Naslov

Komentar

manje | veće

Dodaj kometar