Really nice vs Properly nice (OR RATHER - REALLY VS PROPERLY)

Have you ever used these phrases before? I suppose "really nice" is probably quite commonly used. Generally to describe a person you know/have just met, parties, restaurants that was well, nice and pleasant. But "properly nice" is somewhat less common but I use it nonetheless.

I was queried last night about the difference between "really nice" and "properly nice". I guess it's a really subtle difference? But I gave MHK L an example that he thought was very fitting. In all honesty, both terms have positive intendment and are in no way meant to be antithesis or used as substitutive adjectives.

However it got me thinking: why did I feel the need to be euphemistic? Is it a social ill? (Americanism) Am I just conforming to the modern society I live in today?

The pressures of creating an ideal world (coupled with the perfectionist in me) in this day and age has got us rejecting ALL negative vocabulary/imperfect fruit (see supermarket spec to their suppliers)/the proliferation of IBanking analysts (the pitchbooks have to be perfect)/A* at GCSEs etc etc.

But without the ugly, how can we define the beautiful? Without the bad,how do you know what is REALLY good? (vs PROPERLY good...haha)

OR maybe, just maybe, it's due to the fact that I've (and it's only just moi) allowed my mind to go back in time (Anglo-Saxonised- see the meaning of "nice" in Middle English below) and decided that it's much nicer (no pun intended) to live in the past we've left behind.

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The American Heritage Dictionary, 4th Ed. states:

nice adj. nic·er, nic·est

• Pleasing and agreeable in nature: had a nice time.
• Having a pleasant or attractive appearance: a nice dress; a nice face.
• Exhibiting courtesy and politeness: a nice gesture.
• Of good character and reputation; respectable.
• Overdelicate or fastidious; fussy.
• Showing or requiring great precision or sensitive discernment; subtle: a nice distinction; a nice sense of style.
• Done with delicacy and skill: a nice bit of craft.
• Used as an intensive with and: nice and warm.
• Obsolete.

[Middle English, foolish, from Old French, from Latin nescius, ignorant, from nescre, to be ignorant. See nescience.]
nicely adv. niceness n.
Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth EditionCopyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Words that mean something to me
Americanism - to be like the GAP store salesperson in NYC. Or that American tourist you meet in Florence by the Duomo, in Harrods, London and pretty much everywhere else in London.
Anglo-Saxonised - the use of the English language in a Peter Bowler way. Witty, English humour style.