Kenneth G. Wilson (1923–). The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. 1993.
neat (adj., interj.)
As adjective neat is Standard, meaning “trim, clean, orderly,” as in She kept her room and her person neat, with nothing out of place. But recently neat has had a second burst of use as a counterword meaning “good” or “pleasing,” as in What a neat party! We had a neat visit to the zoo. (This is a use similar to one that developed and then faded away about forty years ago.) In this use neat is slang, cliché, and tiresome, as it also is when it functions as an interjection expressing approval. If the word has you by the throat in either of these uses, shake it off.
