| 词组 | nice |
| 释义 | nice The use of nice as a general-purpose term of approval seems first to have been censured by Archdeacon Hare (Julius Charles Hare, 1795-1855), who was a friend of Walter Savage Landor and had some eccentric ideas about spelling. Ayres 1881 quotes his attack at some length, and Bardeen 1883 mentions him too. Bar-deen lists quite a few late 19th-century commentators on the subject, none of whom approve. The opinions of the critics of the late 19th century have been carried down to the present day. Copperud 1970, 1980 opines that complaints about nice meaning "agreeable" are heard less often than they were a generation ago in this country and that it has become more of an issue in British English than American. It certainly is still alive as an issue in Britain: Phythian 1979, Longman 1984, and Chambers 1985 all mention it. But it also remains a live topic in this country: Reader's Digest 1983 joins Copperud in dismissing it as an issue, but Shaw 1975, 1987, Perrin & Ebbitt 1972, Simon 1980, Trimmer & McCrimmon 1988, Macmillan 1982, Strunk & White 1979, Prentice Hall 1978, Bander 1978, and Irmscher 1976 all join the old-timers and line up against it. The usual objection is that nice is overused and should be avoided in writing. The usage apparently antedates the criticism by about a century. Curiously, the earliest evidence seems to come from Dr. Johnson's circle. Hodgson 1889 quotes a 19th-century philologist named Kington Oliphant, who says the earliest instance he had seen was in Mrs. Thrale's conversation as recorded in Fanny Burney's diary. The earliest citation in the OED is from a 1769 letter of Mrs. Elizabeth Carter, who was also an acquaintance of Dr. Johnson. The usage seems to have come down through the 19th century to the present chiefly as conversational English. It is certainly familiar to American writers, who take no trouble to avoid it in their casual moments: • I have written you this nice long letter —Robert Frost, letter, 9 Oct. 1915 • It was uncommonly nice of you to write —Archibald MacLeish, letter, 9 Sept. 1926 • It was nice to see a great writer in our time —Ernest Hemingway, The Green Hills of Africa, 1935 • It's terribly nice, my boy, with the rosemary in bloom and the fragrance of the mimosa trees — James Thurber, letter, 20 Jan. 1938 • Of course when they began to bring in a little money, that was nice —William Faulkner, 13 Mar. 1958, in Faulkner in the University, 1959 • It was certainly damn nice of you to write me that telegram —F. Scott Fitzgerald, letter, 29 Jan. 1934 • Cary has been so nice—Ask him what he would like and I will try to paint it for him —Zelda Fitzgerald, letter, April 1934 • It was damned nice of you to write in your book for me —Robert Benchley, letter, 29 Apr. 1934 • ... the club cleared a nice profit at the bar — Groucho Marx, letter, summer 1940 There is certainly nothing wrong with an effort to get college freshmen to use a wider variety of adjectives in their writing, but there is also nothing inherently wrong with nice in its generalized use. |
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