| 释义 |
nice-nellyism N. Amer. slang.|naɪsˈnɛlɪɪz(ə)m|
Also nice-nellieism.
[f. nice Nelly, a conventional name for a respectable woman, a prude + -ism.]
Prudery; genteelism; excessive prudishness of speech or behaviour: usually applied adversely. Cf. nelly2 3.
1936New Republic 28 Oct. 337/1 Perhaps, it is true, as charged that the British press is displaying a brand of Nice Nellyism in refusing to mention the subject [sc. the divorce of Mrs Simpson, later Duchess of Windsor]. 1942Sun (Baltimore) 17 June 10/7 Mr. Adams accused the editor [of a new book of soldier songs] of Nice Nellieism in dealing with the songs. 1947Sat. Rev. (U.S.) 15 Feb. 9/2 It takes more than..nice-Nellyism in the name of patriotism to obliterate that spirit. 1952New Yorker 18 Oct. 159/1 Mr. Pyles attributes much of the nice-nellyism that blighted polite speech and writing during the nineteenth century to Webster's Puritan prudishness. 1956N.Y. Times Book Rev. 30 Sept. 2/2 None of the words which Ned Sheldon..found so obnoxious seems to me acutely distasteful, with the exception of ‘funeral parlor’, which carries nice-nellieism to the nth degree. 1960I. Wallach Absence of Cello (1961) 174 ‘Experience’, as absurd a nice-Nellyism for copulation as she could conceive. 1973Saturday Night (Toronto) Oct. 15/1 The public had been made comatose by the greyness of Mackenzie King and the nice nellyism of Middle Powermanship. |