If David Attenborough were to narrate a nature documentary exploring the wilderness of the written word, “nice” would be a declawed kitten. If “nice” were a food it would be comprised of empty calories. If the Ancient Greeks were to weaponize “nice” into an instrument of doom, it would be a trojan horse. If someone calls you nice, in the words of Dante, “Abandon all hope, all ye who enter here.”
Nice originates from the Latin word, nescius, meaning “ignorant.” Eventually the French transmogrofied the word into “nice” and according to a bunch of online robots the original definition was someone who was foolish, simple, ignorant, or senseless.
In the modern colloquial usage, nice tends to be a filler word. The word used when someone has nothing else to say about you or even sometimes used as the precursor for an insult. For example:
“I Hope This Is News is nice buuuuuttttt their articles just keep rambling.”
If someone uses “nice” to describe you, that means that they’re not describing you as: compassionate, funny, knowledgeable, helpful, witty, jubilant, gregarious, reliable, life of a party, better than those other dumb news organizations on the telly, bold, creative, amazing, inspiring, genuine, neato, groovy, a pleasure to have around, weird, disciplined, calm, perceptive, spunky, an engineer, cherished, stylish, ornery, a guiding compass, you deserve a raise, you always hit your word count, introspective, good taste in music, empathetic, magnetic, radiant, spiritual, hilarious, punctual, and on and on.
You’re just nice…
Nice is a limbo, neither good nor evil, you float in the vacuum of space making no impact on the world. Isn’t that just nice?
Lastly, we would be remiss to ignore the third n-word you should also not use: nite-owl. The overwhelming majority of owls are nocturnal. “nite-owl” is redundant. You’re just an owl.