The Romantic Downside of Being Nice
Nice is a word that – because I have studied Latin – maintains a very different feel that it does for most people. For most, the word nice is simply a gentle, nondescript way to say someone or something is pleasant and agreeable.
However, if one does a little digging into the history of the word, nice becomes less of a compliment and more of a euphemism. Nice comes from Latin via French originating in the verb nescio, -are, -avi, -atum. Nescio comes from a verb scire and a preposition ne. Ne means not and scire means to know (from which words such as science - knowing - originate).
Nescio therefore literally means “to not know”. So when someone says that such-and-such is nice they’re giving the impression of a bland and simple person. And while people wil protest that someone who’s nice is simply pleasant, the word still carries with it some feeling of unwantedness.
For instance, imagine the following: Someone sets you up on a blind date and the girl is described simply as “nice”. Horror sets in as you try to imagine what possible deformities the date could have to warrant the meager description of “nice”.
The same can be said of events or media; “it was nice” doesn’t breed confidence or a desire to engage. It feels more like “if you’ve got nothing better to do”.
In Hebrew the word for nice is: nakhmad (נֶחְמָד)
Hebrew words, like other semitic languages, are derived from (usually) a trileteral root. The root word – shoresh (שורש) – is manipulated to make other words somehow related to the root word. In this case, the root is khamed (חמד) which incidentally means beauty or charm. It has none of the sense of “not knowing” that the english “nice” does.
In conversation you don’t get the sense that nakhmad is an adjective-of-last-resort. It carries with it a wholly positive meaning and association.
This sense-definition is crucial to grasp in order to understand a new language. It’s difficult to dis-associate the Romantic nice from the Hebraic nakhmad because a chain is formed from nice-nescio-nakhmad-khamad. However, once the new words become meaningful within their context a barrier is formed between the English and Hebrew and the words become distinct and detached.
This seems to be the key to learning a new language.