Here’s a post about words on a blog called Math With Bad Drawings, and yes, I am particularly amused to see Ben Orlin departing from math topics to hit an English topic.
There are two kinds of people in this world, and no, I don’t mean “kind” and “nice.”
I mean “people who use the words ‘kind’ and ‘nice’ interchangeably” and “people who care passionately about the difference.”
Certainly, kindness is the deeper virtue. A world without niceness would be a bit of a grind; a world without kindness would be unendurably lonely. If the internet were full of writers blithely conflating the two, or insisting that niceness is the key to life, then I would of course speak up in defense of kindness. But we find ourselves in the opposite world, where many are inclined to round niceness down to zero (or even treat it as a vice!). I thus offer the most banal conclusion any writer has ever uttered: being nice is Good, Actually.
Click through and read the whole thing.
Ben has done quite a few good posts. Here is a collection of some of the most popular.
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An interesting explanation of the word nice as used about humans.
I’ve had trouble with over-using nice about other things, like a nice view, nice weather, a nice daytrip. In Dutch we generally don’t like to be effusive about things, but prefer a perhaps slightly understated appreciation, and many of the usual English accolades accorded such things feel like hyperbole, and hence irony, to me if I try to use tgem in person. So in order to not sound ironic, I’d use nice instead of great, beautiful, lovely, terrific and such – but saying “nice” or “good” seven times in a row about aspects of one’s day out starts to feel really stupid, though using the hyperboles in person still felt even stupider.
One of the interesting things here to me is that in some contexts, “nice” actually indicates solid praise. And what context do I have in mind? Why, in dog-related venues. At a dog show, if you’re standing ringside and you say judiciously, “That’s a nice bitch second from the end,” you mean a lot. If you say, “Oh, Jane Smith! Yes, she has nice dogs,” you mean a lot. It’s honestly a different meaning than if you say, “Oh, that’s a nice sunset, isn’t it?” So, for dogs, I think a lot of people do use “nice” in an understated way that indicates a lot more judgment and approval than if the word is used in other contexts.
We (the Teen & I ) were squa… discussing the difference between these two terms not long ago. Trying to distinguish why X character who is generally agreed by readers to be nice, isn’t actually kind or even good, much less nice. We came down on: He’s polite, well mannered and that makes him look nice. But he doesn’t put himself out for anyone.
I pulled up Petunia Dursley from Harry Potter as an example of someone who tries to be publicly nice from what JKR shows the reader. She is most definitely not kind. Hagrid is both. Sam Vimes and Carrot, (Prachett characters) as well as being examples of Lawful Goods – and demonstrations of how that is hardly a designation that makes for cookie-cutter characters – are kind. And usually nice, as well.
This is an interesting distinction to think about. I agree that “nice” can be a strong positive in an understated way (Oh, nice job!) But I usually equate “nice” in a description of people or behavior with being well-mannered and following social expectations. That is often a good thing. It avoids throwing grit in the social machinery or randomly insulting people. I think people who find that kind of niceness overly conformist can be too self-centered. But there are potential downsides to niceness. One is using manners as a class marker. Another is weaponizing niceness against marginalized people – tone policing, objecting to having unpleasant truths pointed out, etc.
Oh, you’ve made me think of something that I feel is a common problem, OtterB — being too nice to react when someone is behaving really badly. Letting people get away with awful behavior because you’re too nice to say, “You should stop that this minute. You should be ashamed, behaving like that.” That’s not actually niceness, is it? That’s social inhibition — or cowardice — or being too surprised to react appropriately. Or a combination.
Good manners as in using the right fork has nothing to do with being nice, as far as I can see — and not much to do with actual good manners, either — though a lot to do with class markers, yes. But noticing that someone has made some sort of trivial etiquette mistake is the height of bad manners.
Good point about the problem with being too “nice” to call people out when it’s absolutely called for.
When I said manners as a class marker, I wasn’t thinking of what fork to use. I was thinking about things like making and responding to introductions, shaking hands, eye contact.
Oh, I don’t think of any of that as “manners” — I think of all of that as body language / social kinesthetics. Because it’s social, it may serve as a class marker, but it’s very much culture-specific and there is absolutely no way in the universe to have people not respond in culturally specific ways to things like how close it’s appropriate to stand. Though it IS possible to learn another culture’s social body language, of course. But not comfortable.
This is a huge and really interesting topic! Two very different things converged in my mind at odd angles while reading the article and your discussion:
A scene in Georgette Heyer in which a gentleman smooths over a social gaffe by deftly turning the conversation, thus preventing a young woman’s embarrassment. This is pointed out as due to his “good breeding,” which I interpreted to mean specific instruction in courtesy and politeness given to members of the upper classes. (Whole treatises could be (and probably have been) written on the word “courtesy,” and its intersection with niceness, kindness, politeness, social mores, class divisions …. ) To me this is an example of an act that was both nice and kind.
A TED talk I happened to watch yesterday on leadership by Kim Scott, author of Radical Candor. She uses a chart with an x-axis called “Challenge Directly” (Rachel’s point about calling people out when they’re behaving badly), and a y-axis called “Care Personally,” which I think aligns with kindness. She advocates for high Care and high Challenge, resulting in Radical Candor. Low Care and Low Challenge result in “Manipulative Insincerity,” which I guess is what a lot of people mean by “nice.” I’ve never used the word that way.
I like Ben’s contrast between deep connection and friendly interaction: in both cases you care about the other person, only the degree differs. If you don’t care about/respect other people, I don’t think you can be nice.