Proper and appropriate.

Isn’t it odd — two words that most commonly mean the same thing (so much so that it’s impossible to find a definition for that common meaning for one that doesn’t involve the other), but that have very different spins.

I mean, you can use the two words pretty interchangably from a technical sense. “Was that the proper thing to do?” “Was that the appropriate thing to do?” But there’s an odd, subtle shading there, too.

Proper comes across as — well, prim and … There’s a sense of formality, of manners, of rules. Gentlemen worry if an action, or a thought, or an utterance is proper. Mary Poppins teaches kids to be proper.

Appropriate comes across as — PC. There’s a sense of self-denying compassion, and making people feel valued, and, yes, also of rules. We’ve been all mesmerized into usnig the word to mean “the humanistic and multiculturally correct thing to do, as ratified by the UN Commission on Appropriate Thinking.”

Etiquette writers advise us to be proper. Shrinks advise us to be appropriate. Mom told us to use proper English. Our HR manager tells us to use appropriate English. Diplomats and snooty headwaiters that deserve to be taken down a peg tell us we’re acting improperly. Politicians and self-esteem consultants tell us we’re acting inappropriately.

Screw it. I’m going to try to use proper more often, rather than appropriate. If nothing else, it will save five bytes of disk space every time I do.

(the obligatory tip o’ the subject line to Adam)