Friday, March 11, 2016

nice, gneiss

Nice or nice means pleasing or agreeable--
They are nice people; let's invite them to dinner.
We went to a nice restaurant last night.

Nice or nice also describes something with, or done with, great precision, skill, tact or delicacy--
It's a nice distinction, but you ought to be able to explain it to someone who is not an expert.
That was a nice way to handle a difficult situation.

Gneiss or gneiss ( rhymes with nice ) means a metamorphic rock, made up of bands of different colors--
This gneiss has a lot of mica in it; you can see it glitter.
Their assignment is to determine the composition of a specimen of gneiss.

Now that you know that, you can say--
"This is a nice example of gneiss made up of feldspar and quartz."

Note--"Nice" ( a proper name, always capitalized ) is a city in France. It is pronounced to rhyme with "niece"--
We spent our holiday in Nice; it was very nice.

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