Writing is choosing. You are continually making judgments about words, not least how your audience will read them. Is "nice" the neutral commendation of baby bo

Writing is choosing. You are continually making judgments about words, not least how your audience will read them. Is "nice" the neutral commendation of baby boomer's youth, the "finicky" of a couple of centuries before (Should any youth, worth making drunk, prove nice ...) or ironic term met since. A lot of new words and usages are not worth saving. In my high school days "hairy" was a general purpose intensive adjective (a big hairy knife/wrench/textbook/whatever), and at 14 I'd have thought well of myself for working it twice into a paragraph. How would that read now.