Unique -- This Post Is Not

I’m amazed I intend to spend time on the death of “unique” as a spoken word. The misuse of it has so ingratiated itself into common parlance that it’s official definition may change in my lifetime. Custom has long made “unique” more applicable to the merely unusual and so those of you out there wanting to fight this fight . . . will lose. My English teachers, yours, too, probably, occasionally explained that “unique” is like “pregnant.” There are no degrees of pregnancy. You either are or you’re not. So with uniqueness. Something can’t be “very unique.”

I rarely hear it used correctly, i.e., to indicate that some phenomenon is “one of a kind”, absolutely sui generis. Rather, I most often hear it used to describe relative rarity and, sadly, when I hear it used correctly, the person is quite often wrong about the uniqueness of the phenomenon because they are too hopeful or just quantitatively wrong about the uniqueness of the matter addressed.

It used to be that “unique” maintained its integrity in the written word, but with so much online writing, without proper editors (like Tina), “unique” will fall from its lonely perch to join the ranks of “unusual,” “rare,” “surprising,” and other slovenly, unquantifiable terms.

The misuse of “unique” may be due to the very construction of the word itself. “Un-” gives us the “one” and oneness of things. But the French “-ique,” like the English “-ic” translates to “in the manner of” or “kinda’ like” as in “heroic.” So if “unique” were fully anglicized, it might be a very ugly and unEnglishy “oneish,” pronounced “one-ish” and that does, we must admit, suggest relative rarity rather than one-of-a-kind absolutism. Americans are often peeved with the French and thus may be sabotaging the Frenchy “unique” because we can perceive the potential “oneish” and would use it if that “-ei-” weren’t so thoroughly hideous.

And, just in case you think I’m literally tone-deaf to how silly my objection to “unique”’s misuse makes me seem to you, dear reader, well, I see you rolling your eyes and exclaiming, “No one cares!”, but you are so wrong for I am not unique in my banner-raising about this matter. I have the English speaking world’s grammarians and English teachers behind me and they kick ass. Awe-inspiringly.