I'm of the generation that says "neat." And when I hear someone say "cool," I think of the language of the late 1950s, beatniks and cool jazz (as opposed to hot jazz). You dig?
As in, like, "neato mosquito!"
I'm of the generation that says "neat." And when I hear someone say "cool," I think of the language of the late 1950s, beatniks and cool jazz (as opposed to hot jazz). You dig?
"Snazzy" is the 1937 equivalent of "wow, that's cool." "Snarky" -- which at the time had nothing to do with waspish sarcasm -- was also used occasionally as a synonym for "Snazzy."
"Spiffy " has always carried the sense to me of something pleasant and pleasing in a way that's both insubstiantial and flamboyant. A man dressed up in a windowpane-checked suit, a double-breasted vest, and brown-and-white wing tip shoes, wearing a straw boater and fawn-colored gloves, and carrying a cane, with a red carnation in his lapel, may be said to be "spiffy," even though he actually looks like a B-unit silent movie comedian in 1924.
A "spiff," as used as a noun, is an old slang term referring to an under-the-table commission paid to a salesman in a store to push a particular line of merchandise. It probably also is the root of the British "spiv," a shady dealer in black-market goods who was traditionally dressed in a "spiffy" manner.
...I can't count the number of times I've advised a person contemplating what to wear to a potentially high-stakes encounter -- a job interview, or a date with a particularly compelling love interest -- not to overdo it. The last thing you wish to do is leave the other party thinking you are inordinately concerned with your attire. A person might come across as superficial, mostly because that's what he is.
"Nice" nowadays has a distinct edge of withering sarcasm. To say that something is "nice" is actually to say that it's decidedly unpleasant, annoying, and in every way unwanted. "Here's your new work schedule, oh, and you're getting a ten percent pay cut and forget about overtime." "Isn't that nice."
The way you described using whitewash, painting (with whitewash) a rotting fence, is exactly what is also meant when the word is used: to do something to make something look nicer even though it does nothing to make it last longer. It just looks better, like painting over rust. The army--all armies, for some reason--love to whitewash everything in the barracks: rocks, trees, signposts, and so on. I recall that whoever lived in one house near the grade school I attended would whitewash the trees in their yard up to about five or six feet high.
There is another term, "window dressing," that is generally used in business to mean things done to improve the financial appearance of a company.
Does the word "nice" still mean "nice" and nothing else? I think it's a pity when a word is appropriated for a new meaning (like "gay") which largely destroys the original meaning of the word. Some words, though, can only be used one way as a compliment, if you follow me. One my say a girl is pretty but you probably wouldn't want to say a boy was pretty, although it is done, at least if the boy is actually pretty. Was Pretty Boy Floyd actually pretty? Pretty is also used to mean "fairly," as in "pretty cold." But the word can wind up in odd expressions, like "pretty ugly."
But the word is safe. There's "Pretty Woman," the movie, and "Oh, Pretty Woman," the song.
As regards what to wear, it can be harder than it seems to be well-dressed, that is, for a man. You don't really want to draw attention to yourself, or more correctly, you don't want people to remember the clothes you wear. But you have to take into account what, when, where and with whom. You wouldn't wear a suit on Saturday morning when you go to get your hair cut but for heaven's sake, don't wear sweat pants. People my age probably shouldn't be wearing shorts, either.
...One my say a girl is pretty but you probably wouldn't want to say a boy was pretty, although it is done, at least if the boy is actually pretty. Was Pretty Boy Floyd actually pretty?...
Legend has it that Floyd was given the nickname when he worked in the oil fields in the Kansas City area because he wore a white button-up shirt and slacks to work. The men on the rigs started calling him "Pretty Boy", which later became "Pretty Boy Floyd". That being said, there is allegedly one witness' account of Floyd's participation in a robbery in which he was described as "a mere boy; a pretty boy with apple cheeks," so I suppose some considered him handsome by the standards of the era. And yes, both Charles Arthur "Pretty Boy" Floyd and Lester Joseph "Baby Face Nelson" Gillis hated their nicknames....A "pretty boy" in the Era was a good-looking man whose looks were cheap and superficial -- the modern term is "himbo." In movies, the classic pretty boy of the 1930s was Robert Taylor. I suspect that Mr. Floyd did not cheerfully embrace this nickname.