Have a Nice Church!
by Peter Toon
When I pick up my mail and when I buy some groceries each morning, I am told to “have a nice day.” Then all day I hear about “nice” things, people and events.
Apparently the word nice has been increasingly used since the eighteenth century (with an acceleration in the recent past) to mean “agreeable” and “acceptable” and “pleasant” and “kind” and “attractive” and much else. This is significant since its earlier meaning (from nescius, “ignorant”) was nothing like the modern meaning.
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more from the online archives
18.3—April 2005
on Being a Free Narnian & the Joy of Subordination by Donald T. Williams
