There's Nothing Unique About This Post

One of my hobbyhorses is the overuse/misuse of the word unique. I understand that many dictionaries now include an "informal" definition of "unusual"; but there's simply no reason on God's green earth to use the word unique to mean unusual. We already have a word for unusual. (It's unusual, for my slower readers.) Unique has a rather specific meaning: one of a kind. But there it is, I see it all the time, being used for unusual or special or important. Here it is, this morning: "Class actions demand that judges play a unique role." I have no idea what that means. I understand that judges play a special role in class actions. But unique? How? Is it unique in every last cotton-pickin' class action? There are literally thousands of them.

Really, this is just lazy, sloppy writing. People (must) think that unique is fancy and dresses up their rather mundane sentences. It adds pizzazz to one's writing. Stop it.

That is all.

Or not quite all: Sam, in comments, is trying to stir the pot. He points out that if unique means unusual, then one can speak of events as more unique or very unique, which one cannot do if the term means "one of a kind." Don't get me started here. A certain person I know prefaces every single one of his stories by saying, "One of the more unique things that ever happened . . . ." Impossible!