"Lazarus Cooke" wrote in message
news:160520081652028714%lazaruscooke@britishlibrar y.invalid...


Words change, not only their form, but also their meaning. See, for
example, 'nice'. Goes back to the Latin 'nescius' - 'ignorant'.
Probably comes from an IE root which has something to do with 'cut'.
In Old French it meant 'silly'. Later it meant 'fastidious'....

Related to the latter sense, it can also be more or less synonymous with
"fine" as in a "nice" distinction......of which this is a nice enough
example, I suppose.

Wolfgang
from the we-be-words desk.