Bryson's "Mother Tongue" (scroll down to pp. 67-68) talks about changes in meanings of words. There were some excellent examples of how some words actually evolved so that the meaning is the opposite, for example, counterfeit once meant a 'legitimate copy.'

However, the most interesting discussion was about the mundane word 'nice.' It has meant 'stupid,' 'foolish,' 'extravagant,' 'elegant,' strange,' 'slothful,' 'unmanly,' luxurious,' 'modest,' 'slight,' 'precise,' 'thin,' 'sly,' 'discriminating,' 'dainty,' and then 'pleasant and agreeable.'

I just can't understand how a word could have that many meanings!

Quote "...However, the most interesting discussion was about the mundane word 'nice.' ..."

The word "nice" is often cited by critics who suggest that English is an imprecise language. Nonsense, of course. It's just that nice is an imprecise word and their are many times when imprecision is exactly what is required.

For example, I might want to say of a person, "...She's a nice lady...". That shows my genberal approval of the lady in question without my having to define just what it is about her that I admire.

Without that handy word I would have to think of more precise adjectives: honest, reliable, tender, caring, well-spoken, intelligent, smart and so on. And such precise descriptions, apart from being more time-consuming to convey, may not be appropriate at that stage of a conversation or relationship.

I believe that the English language's vast store of words, from the very vague to the very specific, is one of its great strengths.

I well remember one of my English teachers, Alfie Knott, used to fulminate against the use of "nice" in our writing ("We went to the zoo and had a nice time"). He called it a namby-pamby word with no real meaning.

Alfie, by the way, joined the school as a student teacher in the early 1930s and stayed there for his entire career. When he retired he taught voluntarily in East Africa for five more years. Shortly after his return to England he opened his front door to a caller one morning and was shot by a gunman. The caller had mistaken his house for that of a gangland boss nearby, apparently. Luckily Alfie made pretty much a complete recovery, and so far as I know he is still alive, despite presumably being in his 90s by now.

Nice

I think that the reason Kalleh (and Bryson) brought up nice is because it went from meaning 'ignorant' to 'wanton, profligate' to '(mildly) pleasant' in the course of a millennium or so. As for its current multiple meanings, remember context is important. It would have been nice if Bryson had cited sentences for each of its meanings.

We went to the zoo and had a nice time

Not sure what old Alfie was on about, but if somebody uttered that sentence within my hearing or wrote it on the blackboard prior to making a speech, I'd have a fairly good idea of what it meant. Sorry to hear that he was shot, but if he'd lived in England it couldn't have happened. Oh, wait, er ...

Then meaning shifted so frequently and radically that it is now often impossible to tell in what sense it was intended, as when Jane Austen wrote to a friend, "You scold me so much in a nice long letter ... which I have received from you".

I really loved that comment. It could have meant something much different than we have thought.

quote:

---

Originally posted by arnie:
I well remember one of my English teachers, Alfie Knott, used to fulminate against the use of "nice" in our writing ("We went to the zoo and had a nice time"). He called it a namby-pamby word with no real meaning.

---

It isn't just in English where people feel this way. One of my former German teachers always used to get very impatient with anyone using the word nett (which means nice) for exactly the same reason.

Wie nett.

Funny how no-one ever fulminates about 'good' or 'big' or 'long'. That shows the animus against 'nice' is unthinking: they read somewhere that it's bad.

At one of the many "development" workshops I've been to over the past few years (don't worry, Richard - I really love being trained!), they did an exercise where they took a list of 'vague' words and had everyone in the room quantify them. Then they shared the results.

For instance, "a few" was quantified as being any number from 2 - 7, "some" being anything from part of 1 to 10 or so. It was an interesting exercise, meant to show that supervisors should choose from the many more precise words in our language rather than allowing vague notions to creep into our evaluations and memos.

Now that sounds like a great workshop! Why do I have to spend gadzillion hours learning about the balanced scorecard?

Oh, Kalleh - that's nothing! The really fun stuff is when I get "sent" to the National Storytelling Festival! Wowza! Talk about lovers of words!

Quote "...Now that sounds like a great workshop! Why do I have to spend gadzillion hours learning about the balanced scorecard? ..."

As we trainers are wont to say, "It's not the topic that makes the training event it's the trainer"

A good trainer could run an enjoyable and effective course on watching paint dry.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Richard English:

A good trainer could run an enjoyable and effective course on watching paint dry.

---

Yes, but only a mediocre manager would send anyone to it . . . unless it was in Hawaii and she sent herself!

Quote "...Yes, but only a mediocre manager would send anyone to it . . . unless it was in Hawaii and she sent herself..."

Not so. The first part of any training intervention is to establish the need. Providing there was a need to know about the physics of drying paint (and I would imagine there are many people in paint-related jobs to whom this would be important) then the course would be appropriate and, if properly designed and delivered, interesting and enjoyable as well.

I stand corrected, Richard. Well, actually I'm sitting. I am, however, still corrected.

Mind you, as one who makes his living from training I suppose I might just be a little biased...

quote:

---

The first part of any training intervention is to establish the need.

---

The classic example of the Super Salesman is The Music Man.

The only remedy for the newly discovered Trouble there in River City was to establish a Boys' Band, dressed in garments that the Music Man sold and playing instruments that he also was able to provide.

quote:

---

Originally posted by jerry thomas:

quote:

---

The first part of any training intervention is to establish the need.

---

The classic example of the Super Salesman is _The Music Man._

The only remedy for the newly discovered Trouble there in River City was to establish a Boys' Band, dressed in garments that the Music Man sold and playing instruments that he also was able to provide.

---

Ahh - but Marian, the quintessential librarian - saw through the hooplah to see what was truly happening. He was selling hope! He was selling a dream! Selling the potential of each individual, convincing them to strive to be better than they were previously. What a guy, was Harold Hill. My hero!

What exactly is the difference between a "trainer" and a "consultant?"

I was very excited for this meeting on leadership in St. Paul, MN. However, today's sessions were mediocre, at best. We had an interactive session on "Appreciative Inquiry", looking at discovering, dreaming, dialoguing, and designing. We did this through this "World Cafe" methodology. By the end, all of us wondered how effective the day was.

In essence, we all got together in groups or one-to-one and talked about our dreams. It is fine to do once or twice, but to do that on and on all day was just beyond me! I ended up talking to this wonderful woman from Germany and gentleman from Ireland, and we just talked to get to know each other.

I am skeptical!

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kalleh:
What exactly is the difference between a "trainer" and a "consultant?"

---

About $150 an hour.

quote:

---

About $150 an hour.

---

What's that line in King Lear wherein the Fool puns dollars and dolors?

Quote "...What exactly is the difference between a "trainer" and a "consultant?"..."

A good trainer will also be a consultant; a consultant need not be a trainer.

To be a good trainer you need to know both the topic you are training and the skills of the training process. A consultant needs primarily to sell him or herself to the client company for lots of money.

That's why there are more mediocre consultants around than there are good trainers!

Trust me; I'm a trainer.

"Trust me; I'm a trainer. "

I suppose it's a little better to hear that than "Would you like to come see my etchings."

I always giggled at my hubby's favorite line "Take your clothes off, I'm an artist."