"Nice and" expression question.

[Carol]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "zanooda2" <zanooda2 at ...> wrote:
>
> Thank you for answering, everyone :-). I'm so happy that there was no
> disagreement this time :-). I just want to clarify one more thing. Did
>  I understand it correctly from your posts that if someone uses "nice
> and", he means something positive (from his point of view)? For
> instance, if in a hot day someone is offered a cold drink, he can call
> it "nice and cold", because he wants it to be cold in this weather.
> However, if in the morning he is given a cup of cold coffee instead
of hot, he won't call it "nice and cold". Do I understand you correctly?
> A drink in hot weather feels nice *because* it is cold, right?
> 
> 
> zanooda, who was sure that "pleasantly" and "agreeably" were
synonyms ...
>
Carol responds:

Right. You'd want a drink that's "nice and cold" (or cool) in summer
and one that's "nice and hot" in winter.

As for "agreeably" and "pleasantly," yes, they're synonyms, but
there's a shade of difference in meaning or we wouldn't need both of
them. (Pleasant is, well, a little "nicer"!) But the difference isn't
worth worrying about, especially for the purpose of translating an idiom.

By the way, I love your posts on the difficulties of translation. It's
funny (in the sense of odd, not amusing) how much we take language for
granted and how little we think about what it means as we read it
unless we encounter an unfamiliar term--an American reader stumbling
over British slang, fo example. But idioms, in most cases, just slide
right by.

By, the way, the "and" isn't stated if "nice" comes before the noun:
it's "a nice, supple wand"; "a nice, hot drink"; "a nice, easy
crossword puzzle"; etc. So the wand is "nice" (a good wand) *because*
it's supple, and so forth.

Carol, now wanting a nice cup of hot chocolate (which is "nice" for
more reasons than one) 

Carol, trying to keep things nice and simple