"Nice and" expression question.

[sistermagpie]

Catlady:
> > I think everyone in this discussion agrees what 'nice and' means:
> > satifactorialy (per Readers' Digest), 'just right', agreeably ... 
but
> > no one offered the word 'correctly' yet. This wand is correctly
> > supple. This sweater is correctly warm. Turn the control correctly
> > gently."  I guess in English it would sound slightly less 
unnatural to
> > say This wand is the correct amount of supple, this sweater is the
> > correct amount of warm, turn the control the correct amount of 
gently.
> 
> Geoff:
> I don't think I would ever describe something as "correctly warm" 
> or "satisfactorily warm" in that context. I doubt whether the 
average UK 
> English speaker would try to express it in any other way which is 
why I 
> think any attempt to translate it as it stands would not work. You 
might 
> try "supple enough" or "warm enough"but I think the idiomatic use 
just 
> wouldn't transfer across - like idioms in any language.

Magpie:
I think the "correctly" version would be more like "warm--as it 
should be." Like the implication is that it's warm the way all good 
sweaters should be. Of course that might be subjective, but I'm sure 
all of us at some time have had somebody give us something 
that's "nice and X" as if "X" is a good thing when we don't think it 
is.

-m