THE DEMISE OF ‘NICE’

That’s a nice dress

It was a nice movie

He’s a nice guy

Your shoes are nice.

The dictionary defines the word NICE as pleasing, kind and showing courtesy. And till some time ago, that was true. But somewhere along, I think that the word ‘nice’ has gone from having positive character to having no character at all.

Try thinking of all the recent times when you have used the word ‘nice’ and somewhere you will notice it was more often to be noncommittal and just border on giving a positive vibe rather than actually meaning anything else.  When we don’t want to say anything and yet have to say something, ‘Nice’ crops up.

I am seriously done with the word ‘Nice’. Of course, I have a personal war going on with this word, but that apart I have difficulty in understanding what people mean when they use the word ‘Nice’. It’s so vague and unrevealing that more often than not, I’m left with a huge question mark in my mind. Which pretty much doubles my anxiety and confusion (to some extent) since I’m left with having to try and figure out ‘what in the bloody hell was that nice all about’.

Now, if you were an artist, a poet, a chef, a designer, a writer, a painter, would you settle for your work to be described as ‘Nice’? I think not.

What would you think if you had just shared your 1st kiss with a guy you really like and he ends up saying ‘Oh that was really nice’?  You will flip over it and it wouldn’t matter what he meant because to you it means it’s nothing to write home about. I mean, you would be better off if he had made some satisfied sound like ‘mmmmmm’. But definitely not ‘Nice’.

And, if you pay close attention to the use of the word ‘nice’, you will notice that ‘Nice’ is almost always if not always followed by the word ‘but’. And the ‘But’ adds more food for thought than the ‘Nice’ did. More so, the ‘but’ has negative or not so positive implications. The ‘but’ actually leads to a definite point of view to the context while the ‘nice’ is a loosely used term with no meaning at all. It just gives the user a certain, often misplaced benefit of doubt. Abstract to a great extent.

Now, in my mind some of the reasons for excessive usage of the word ‘Nice’:

1.      Laziness – Let’s accept it - we are just too fucking lazy and ‘nice’ is the easiest and simplest thing to say. We don’t want to tax our brains (Of course, assuming that we actually use our brains at all)

2.      Limited vocabulary - One would think that with over a quarter million words in the dictionary, we can be more creative in our vocabulary. But I think, with most of us spending so much time BBing, texting, using short forms and slang etc, reading has left the building a long time ago, never to come back.

3.      We just don’t express our true feelings and enthusiasm everyday which leads to unimaginative conversation. Nonversation, as my best friend would say.

4.      It’s easier to be vague and noncommittal than to say what we really want to.

Thus, coming back to my point that ‘Nice’ no longer has any clear cut connotations to it. ‘Nice’ has become one of those socially accepted throwaway terms that actually gives ample cause for unclear thinking. It’s been overused to the point of being meaningless.

Simply put & correct me if I’m wrong, but if someone described me or you as nice, it would mean nothing to us, right? If at all, it would be considered to have more negative implications like boring, submissive even prudish than anything else.

Of course, anyone who knows me well would not use that term to describe me, but I’m just saying –NICE JUST DOES NOT CUT ICE, ANYMORE!