Play Nice

On the train this morning, I glanced over at my neighbor's magazine and saw an article titled "Play Nice." I suddenly noticed that a certain semantic nuance exists between what is surely meant by this phrase, and what its grammar actually means. No doubt, parents the world over who lob this part-time plea, part-time threat at their children, mean what is properly worded as "play nicely," that is, be nice to others when you play. "Play nice," though, at least to my mind, denotes something just slightly different. It tells children to play (or act out) the quality of niceness -- as if playing the attribute of niceness on stage. It's the difference between telling children how to act, and telling them how to be. Not "be nice to others," but "pretend that you're nice when interacting with others." We might even put the word "nice" in quotation marks itself: "play 'nice,' children." Rather than a quality to embody, it is something to mimic.

Still, go forth and say "play nice," because everyone knows what you mean. I tend to complicate things.