"Nice and" expression question.

[sistermagpie]

--- 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?


Magpie:
Yup. Unless the person was being sarcastic as in: "Oh good. Nice and 
cold." to a cold cup of coffee on a cold morning. But yes, the "nice" 
always indicates the person thinks it's a good thing that it is 
whatever. When I read this I thought of a movie of Dracula where 
Renfield is describing a fly he's about to eat: nice and fat and juicy.

Gross to us, but very good to him.

-m