Utterly Unique
Posted: December 16th, 2009 | Filed under: Media | 99 Comments »
I might have to start a new category for “English Language” or something, because today I want to talk about the word “unique.” I wrote a Sports Illustrated column about Roy Halladay that led like so:
Well, you probably know by now that the three-way Roy Halladay-Cliff Lee-prospects-galore deal is utterly unique.
Now, that is a clunky sentence … especially that phrase “utterly unique.” I knew it when I wrote it and, sure enough, I got a confirmation email from brilliant reader Tyler up in Vancouver:
While I normally love the over-the-top descriptions that sports writers employ for comedic effect, I wasn’t certain whether or not you were using an inappropriate pairing of words in this regard or not. The fact is, ‘unique’ is a descriptor that stands alone and ought not have a modifier in front of it. Something is either unique or not, one thing cannot be ‘more unique’ or ‘utterly unique’, it is just unique. I know this sort of usage is common in today’s society, but I thought it was worth pointing out.
Tyler is absolutely right*. The top definition for “Unique” in the American Heritage Dictionary is “being the only one of its kind, unlike anything else.”
*See what I did there — putting absolutely in front right when it is totally unnecessary**.
**See what I did there with “totally unnecessary?”
However … that is not the only definition for unique. There is a secondary definition — unique as “particularly remarkable, special or unusual.” Sad to say, I don’t think “one of a kind” is the most accepted definition of unique, not in a world where good players are unique, good sales provide unique opportunities, there is a Web site for unique baby names (which, by virtue of being on a Web site, would no long be unique) and everyone is looking for a unique gift this holiday season.
The power of words: This is one of my favorite writing topics. And, it seems to me, one of the fun challenges of being a writer in this era is that we live in a time when many words have lost their power, when spectacular is good, when great is better than average, when a team that is undefeated is perfect no matter how they got there, when I find myself saying “awesome” just when a waiter brings me a second Diet Coke before I have finished the first.
So, I read my sentence the way it probably should be written — “Well, you probably know by now that the three-way Roy Halladay-Cliff Lee-prospects-galore deal is unique” — and I realize that for most people, it will not carry the appropriate meaning. They will define the word unique in the secondary way; they will think I’m trying to say that the deal is unusual.
But I was not saying that. I was saying the trade is UNIQUE, all caps, one of a kind. It was the first time that two Cy Young winners were included in the same trade. Throw in that the son of a Cy Young winner — Kyle ben Doug Drabek — and, yes, there has never been a trade quite like it.
So what is a writer to do? There are those who say a writer should continue to fight for the meaning of words by using them in the traditional way and demanding that people read it the right way. And there are others who say that those fights are lost — that using “unique” as “one of a kind” and expecting people to read it that way is self-defeating. I don’t know. It’s an interesting topic, I think. In the end, though, I don’t think the sentence sounds quite right in 2009 with just the word “unique.” The trade was utterly unique. Or anyway, that is my personal opinion.*
*See what I did there?
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Circle me, Al Hrabosky.
(That cat was utterly unique.)
Why don’t you just say the trade was “one of a kind?” I think that’ll get your point across.
Interesting post. I respect the practicality of your argument, but, to me, “unique,” still means unique. It’s really sad that some people think that they have to use hackneyed phrases, such as, “one of a kind,” when we already have a word for that idea. I don’t think that major dictionaries’ capitulation to mainstream usage is justification for it.
I am really excited about the upcoming Bob Dylan post because I have discovered that I love his work. Everytime I think I have heard his best I find something else a little bit better, like the underappreciated “Dirge” or “Ain’t Talkin’”. To tie it back to this post though I think Dylan constantly struggled with the divide between his intented meaning and his audience’s perceived meaning, trying at different times in his career to be very direct and literal and giving up in others and just letting people come to their own conclusions. I think the point of art is to illustrate that communication can bring us together and while acknowledging that we are all alone in our perceived realities.
That means you sir, are a true artist.
Was this even a three-way deal? Did the Mariners or Blue Jays exchange anyone or anything? I view it as two separate trades, even if one trade was, or is ,contingent on the other I don’t believe that makes it a three-way deal.
Just wondering.
I’m all for the classic “unprecedented”.
Why not “unprecedented?”
Used to be, you could use “singular.” But it sounds dated now. Everyone associates it with Sherlock Holmes.
I think fighting the fight against lost English usage is completely useless.*
* Unless it’s by Joe Posnanski
Matt S: I think it technically was a 3-way deal because the Jays sent Taylor to the Athletics for Wallace. Seattle and Toronto didn’t exchange anything, so without Oakland it wouldn’t be a 3-way.
Ken Jennings of Jeopardy! fame has written before, persuasively I think, about being ok with modifiers for the word unique. Let me see if I can find it…
Here it is. He has a very good blog as well.
http://ken-jennings.com/blog/?p=1315
Tyler’s correction made your column more perfect.
Writing is an exercise in communication, not an exercise in “proper” english. You wrote what you wanted your readers to read. I think that was the correct way to approach it.
(Should “english” be capitalized in the way I am using it?)
You do know that two Cy Young winners have been in the same trade before, right? In fact, one of the two was Cliff Lee who was part of Omar Minaya’s nutty trade for Bartolo Colon in 2002.
Granted, that trade was before either of them won the Cy Young, so the current trade is still mostly utterly unique.
fight the fight-use words right(ly)..and junk
Joe, did you know that “humbug” is a noun meaning “hoax” and not an expression of grumpiness? I just found this out the other day and its given a huge new amount of weight to a certain infamous literary character that’s just blowing my mind. It’s weird how certain key ideas are completely lost as the winds of time erode and reform language.
“Writing is an exercise in communication, not an exercise in “proper” english.”
You seem to believe that “proper english” somehow inhibits the former. The whole point is that proper english facilitates communication. To wit, proper english provides us with words like “unique” with which to express ideas. When, from incorrect usage, words like unique become so bland as to lose their original or most specific meanings, communication suffers – we require more words to say the same thing, or more words to almost say what we mean.
David Foster Wallace’s Militant Grammarians are coming for you, Joe.
The english language and it’s use of words has evolved and will continue to evolve. Kind of like how statistics and it’s uses has evolved and will continue to evolve in baseball.
“Writing is an exercise in communication, not an exercise in “proper” english.”
You seem to believe that “proper english” somehow inhibits the former.
- I don’t think that he’s implying that proper english inhibits communication. I think he’s implying that proper english is not always absolutely necessary* to accomplish ones goals.
* See what I did there.
Also, was anyone else delighted that #6 and #7 made essentially the same post at the same time?
Also also, I’m pretty sure the word Joe was searching for was “ridonkulous” anyway.
Not at all like how statistics have helped baseball to evolve. The “evolution” of language has altered so many words’ significance that we now have to use more words to express a concept, or, in some cases, have trouble expressing the concept at all. Statistics have made baseball easier to understand. The degradation of language, on the other hand, has made communication more difficult.
“The english language and it’s use of words has evolved and will continue to evolve. Kind of like how statistics and it’s uses has evolved and will continue to evolve in baseball.”
I agree with the first statement – assuming by “evolve” you mean “change” rather than “improve.”
I disagree with your second point. I’m not the biggest stathead, but I think it’d be fair to say that a primary goal of the sabermetric movement is to use all existing information to understand more about baseball players. If that’s approximately right, then how is it analogous to a “project” (language) that continuously sacrifices unique or erudite usage (a la complicated formulas like ZIPs or FIPs or other things, known to only a relative few) to satisfy “conventional usage” (like RBIs known to many).
say “Unique New York” five times fast
20 – very fair point. I guess I just bristled at what I felt was a pedantic tone.
13 – Yes, capitalize “English.”
Even among your blog posts, this is a great blog post. I mean, your blogs are usually great, but this one, this one has it all.
btw, while I believe we should fight the good fight, we should also acknowledge the communicative power of the vernacular*.
*hope I used that word correctly.
btw2, my sons are in junior high, and they have this book “1001 words you should know”. My wife and I are both reasonably well educated**, and I learn new words almost every week***.
**I only mention this to add interest, not brag.
***Or, learn a different defintion for a word that I already knew, or thought I knew.****
****should the asterisk go before or after the “.”?
This conversation hasn’t gotten there yet, but I’m afraid it will soon: people love to complain about the little “rules” of English that they notice everyone else breaking all the time. They seem to think it signifies a break down of the English language and a harbinger of dark tidings.
These feelings, like timmy! said, remind me an awful lot of how people treat baseball statistics. I even wrote about it fairly recently ( http://wezen-ball.com/2009-articles/november/baseball-prescriptivism.html ):
I still believe this 100%. Thoughts?
Ken Jennings is wrong. If one dog is unique, another dog can’t be more unique. They can, however, both be unique in separate respects.
I hate the idea that Unique (in any of its meanings) cannot take a modifier. Every snowflake is unique, but a green snowflake would be more unique than most.
@26: Great post. Obviously, I agree with your hypothesis.
Joe, the English language (and any dictionary of words in said language) is a “living document”, not a static one.
Word usage (and indeed, new words) are constantly being changed/added to the everyday lexicon of the users of said language.
Language itself is merely a tool of communication, and as such can become outdated and in need of repairs or improvements. Who decides when this is appropriate? The owner of the tool, for it is he who is affected the most by it. In this case, the owners are the users of the language.
And, even if you wanted to go by the strict definition, I think you would deserve special dispensation, assuming the trade involved a prospect named Holstein or Hereford, if you called the trade “udderly unique” instead.
Isn’t every trade unique? Except for those where the teams trade the same players back to each other at a later time?
Grunthos #8 — I dunno, my first association after the real meaning would be to the asthma drug Cingulair (usually pronounced “singular”; probably because my wife takes it).
Lou Mindar #13 — When referring to the language or the people, it is always capitalized. Lower-case “e” english refers to motion or spin (e.g., Carlton Fisk used “body english” to make his 1975 WS HR go fair).
timmy #19 — It’s “its” you should be using. The one without the apostrophe is a possessive (belonging to “it”); the one with the apostrophe is a contract of “it is”.
mike in MN #25 — Good question. I would follow the same rule that I use for punctuation and quotation marks: if the period is part of the quote, it goes inside the mark; if if is the end of the writer’s sentence, it goes outside. See, e.g., the end of the comment to timmy! #19.
lars @ wezen-ball #26 — Well said, and I agree with you totally 100%. *LOL* Seriously, I think you make a very good and accurate point.
Gene #28 — No, a green snowflake might be more unusual, but it would not be more unique (it’s still one-of-a-kind).
So, Joe — when are we going to get the “fast food”/”comfort food” post? I am literally dying to read it. (That usage of “literally” is another one of my pet peeves — no, obviously, I am not at death’s door because of Joe’s not posting.)
Rule #1 there are no rules
Rule #2 see rule #1
No, no, not yet. Not until me and Harvey get the rules straightened out.
Rules? In a knife fight? No rules.
Well, if there aint’ going to be any rules, let’s get the fight started. Someone count. 1,2,3 go.
The Golden Rule: whoever has the gold makes the rules
Obviously, that should be “contraction” in the comment to timmy #19. Or maybe I’ve made a neologism — a contraction of “contraction”.
The English language sure is fun.
One modifier you can use before any word is “f—king”. As in, “The three way trade was f—king unique.”
The best thing about it is that it’s appropriate in all venues.
David in NYC @33
In response to your response to Gene @28, I agree with your general premise, but if all snowflakes are unique (i.e. one-of-a-kind), then how can one be more unusual than another?
“The english language and it’s use of words has evolved and will continue to evolve. Kind of like how statistics and it’s uses has evolved and will continue to evolve in baseball.”
I disagree in this case. Taking a word that actually has a useful meaning, and re-assigning it a meaning for which there are already countless words for, is not “evolution,” but the opposite. Languages do evolve, but they can also devolve. We don’t need more words for “remarkable,” “special,” and so on. That “unique” used to convey a different meaning and now it doesn’t speaks more to the latter than the former.
But does it beg the question?
As was implicitly pointed out at #12, if we don’t allow modifiers applied to (supposed) absolutes this disallows “more perfect” as in “a more perfect union.” But of course the founding fathers were notoriously illiterate…
As a point of historical linguistics, the intensity of words constantly changes. This is nothing new. For a simple example, consider “naughty.” Nowadays it is applied to a disobedient child or to a photograph showing certain body parts. In the 14th century, when the word entered the language, its meaning was closer to “evil.” Write “Hitler was a naughty man” today and it lacks umph.
No worries, however. Gaps in the language get filled if there is an actual need. We don’t have trouble expressing disapprobation of Hitler. We just use some word other than “naughty.”
#33, my point was that literally everything is unique. If you fail to make distinctions between levels of uniqueness, the word becomes a space filler that should be avoided altogether.
Mark Daniel at #36…totally awesome post!
I find this whole discussion extremely tiresome…well, other than the uniquely interesting aspect that there are seemingly a number of grammarian sports fans out there…a uniquely one of a kind individual I’m sure.
But I digress from my point, Mark Daniel, you sir, nailed it! And your post is truly f$@#-ing unique!
Red at #37 raises a good point – if you were to find two snowflakes that were exactly the same as one another, THAT would be unique.
It’s better to be understood than correct.
Language, by its very nature, is constantly evolving. To hear people demand that we attempt to cement the meanings of words in place at this particular point in time, when hundreds of similar changes have occurred over the past centuries since English reached its “modern” form, is more than a little ridiculous and really just fruitless, because they’re going to change eventually whether you wish it or not.
From your second to last paragraph: “…there has never been a trade quite like it.”
So it WAS unique, right? Why the word “like” in there if you’ve already pointed out there has never been a trade involving two Cy Young winners and a third’s kid?
You could safely say “there has never been a trade like it.” Or, that it was “unique”… Or “one-of-a-kind”…
My mind is blown…
The duty of those who care about good writing is not to cave into the masses who might not understand the correct meaning of “unique.” So don’t ruin the unique meaning of unique by saying “utterly unique.” If you believe “unique” is not strong enough, find a better word or phrase…”utterly astounding” or “left me gobsmacked” (for anyone who watched Letterman last night)
When it gets right down to it, utterly is like most adverbs–they are superfluous and can be excised without diminishing the clarity or quality of the writing. They are most useful for students (or columnists) who have to pad their papers and articles to reach the desired word limit.
Red #37 — Good catch. I was wondering if any of our other “grammarian sports fans” (as Marmot #42 describes us) would spot that.
Actually, though, white snowflakes, while each is unique in structure, are not unusual (since all snowflakes are white in color). A green snowflake or, for that matter, all green snowflakes (why am I reminding myself not to eat the yellow snow?), OTOH, would be unusual in color, but not necessarily in structure.
“Unique” has an implied context, e.g., as I used it above for structure.
As I said, English sure is fun.
Speaking of which, I am surprised that there has been no followup so far to Pope #39’s question about begging the question. That particular phrase usually generates a lot of comment.
I didn’t know Kyle Drabek was being Bar Mitzvah’d…
…”Kyle ben Doug Drabek” – TIMELESSLY CLASSIC*!
* See what I did there?
Speaking as a life-long Blue Jays fan, this is a day of mourning. I suffer today as Joe suffered when Carlos Beltran was traded.
The AL East is such a horrible division to compete in. I’d argue it exemplifies the best and worst of MLB’s dysfunctional economic system.
Joe … just go with unique. Fewer words = less effort for reader. I am utterly certain of this.
The NY Times covered this very topic in a recent “On Language” column:
“We have all heard admonitions at some point or other that the word unique cannot be modified — a thing is either unique or it is not. This would be considerably more convincing if it were not so obviously untrue, as people modify unique quite frequently, and have done so for a long time. Through the magic of Google Books you can now search through enormous numbers of books and magazines from the 19th century and see literally hundreds of writers who use more unique, less unique and even that bugbear of the purists, somewhat unique.”
I once taught a class which included two students named Unique. Each was unique.
Seems like this topic was brought up n another post or two, but I’ll say it again: The words you are speaking today, almost all of them, meant something totally different in 1410. That’s only 600 years— not very long, when the whole evolution of a language is concerned.
So while the fact that more people tend to use the second definition of the word “unique” rather than the first does, in fact, signal the end of the English language as we know it (eventually, anyway), that’s not at all a bad thing. It’s natural. It happens. Let’s not fret, people.
Awesome?
What, like a hot dog?
Had I been subediting the SI story, I might have altered “utterly unique” to “unquestionably unique”.
That way, unique gets its modifier, thus gaining emphasis, but the finger-pointers have to stay their hands.
Y’all are arguing about the difference between descriptive language (what people actually say) and prescriptive (what the rule books say we’re supposed to say).
Nobody speaks “perfect” prescriptive English; it’s a model, an ideal. In real life we change registers depending on the situation in which we find ourselves – for example, I’d use different vocabulary and grammar in a country music joint than in an academic job interview.
That said, from the point of view of style, I think there are better and worse ways of using words. I don’t like modifying “unique” at all, though I agree with Joe that years of sloppy use have reduced its impact to the level of “unusual.” “Unprecedented,” as someone suggested above, is a much better word anyway.
Ya know it’s funny, I was having this discussion with my mom not too long ago. Unique, she says means one-of-a-kind and can’t be modified, like your brilliant reader and like the first dictionary listing. My opinion though is that one thing CAN be more or less unique than another. Take a world that contains only 3 objects, a chair, a stool and a banana. The chair and stool are both unique, but I feel a banana is more unique because it has even fewer common traits than it’s fellow objects.
“Utterly unique” has a feel to it, a raised-eyebrow holy-cow element that might be awfully tough to recreate with other words in a reasonable time. This is the alchemy of popular writing.
“Which notes did you have in mind, Majesty?”
This seems like an incredibly good deal for the Phillies
Another construction that just bugs me is the very common “By far one of the….”. If the topic of discussion is “by far”, then it can’t be “one of the”. And if it’s “one of the”, then it’s not “by far”.
I disagree that most people use ‘unique’ differently; I think most people know it means one of a kind (literally). But I still think it’s OK to say utterly unique; think how many adjectives you would see in front of the word perfect.
Also, I did not know the Drabeks were Jewish.
Joe, I like your unique usage of the Hebrew ben for Kyle ben Doug Drabek.
The whole point is that proper english facilitates communication.
I just spent an entire semester trying to convince my students that there is no such thing as “proper” English.
There is, however, standard English. Using “unique” with its antiquated meaning is not standard.
Hate to skip ahead and say what has been already said. Additionally I hate to defend the poor phrase ‘utterly unique’ . I don’t believe it to be incorrect. It’s like the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world. There are multiple belts. One is not just the champion of the world, one has to be champion of the world of all the belts, in all ways that one can be.
A thing can be unique in some regards, quite plain in others. A thing which is utterly unique would be unique in all (or most) regards. A person who is absolutely right is not just correct in respect to certain things, but with respect to all disputes.
Grammar Nazis unite!
I agree, say “Unique New York” 5 times fast.
I think I can guarantee that I’m one of the youngest readers here, so I’m not surprised I’m bringing this up first. A huge violation of the English language happens on a social networking site like Facebook among teenagers. Here’s some excerpts from an ex-girlfriend of mine:*
* These quotes are not why we broke up, but they do annoy me.
“borrrrred outta my mind.”
“dinner date with shellyyyyyyy!”
“sittin at amandaaaaa’ssssss”*
Apparently it’s cool to act like you stuck chewing gum under some keys on your keyboard.
* It would be slightly amusing to hear something like Microsoft Sam read this, however.
“sittin at amanda-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-es-es-es-es-es-es-es-es”
I also feel that in some regards, some people are a bit too uptight with using proper English. It’s one thing if you’re writing a research paper; of course you want to sound professional. But if it’s in a conversational tone, I think it’s OK to tweak a rule here or there if it’s how you actually talk,* provided it’s not a blatant violation.
* Which is why the excerpts in my previous post annoy me: that’s not how a person would talk in real life.
PS: Grammar Nazis have caused me to start using semi-colons in my typed speech. I’m not pleased.
I don’t remember the exact quote, but allow me to paraphrase: good writers know the rules, great writers break them.
I tend to think that unique should remain unmodified, but it doesn’t bother me all that much when it is. It’s more a question of style and context. In a sports column, it’s fine; in a monograph, it’d raise an eyebrow.
@40 Richard – the construction “a more perfect union” is different, because it’s not saying “the union is perfect, let’s make it more so”, it’s saying “the union is flawed, let’s make it closer to perfect”.
There seems to be an unspoken disapproval of modifiers in all of this. Is it really so lazy or just not descriptive enough?
This reminds me of a trade that took place between the Cardinals and Brewers. Sutter to the Brewers, and a catcher, whose name escapes me, to the Cardinals. I believe the two teams met in the World Series. I would enjoy reading an informed take on the results of that trade.
@67
Louis Menand had an article in the New Yorker a while ago asking if text-speak is ruining English. Some professor wrote in to point out that articles like Menand’s have been published every generation or so since teh dawn of publishing. So it goes.
And I don’t mean to point you out, since the term is widespread, even in this thread, but I abhor the label “Grammar Nazi”. The Nazis were horrible, evil people. I’d like to propose “Grammar Vigilantes”. Not quite as catchy, but more accurate, I think, without casting undue opprobrium on us, nor diminishing the historic depravity of the Nazis.
Anybody who doesn’t like the sound of “a more perfect union” doesn’t want the language to SING! C’mon! that’s one seriously descriptive phrase. That phrasing encapsulates the whole reckoning of absolute and relative, infinite and finite, head and heart…all of it. and it’s wise a Ben Franklin sort of way.
@48 E.B. White* – “When it gets right down to it, utterly is like most adverbs–they are superfluous and can be excised without diminishing the clarity or quality of the writing. They are most useful for students (or columnists) who have to pad their papers and articles to reach the desired word limit.”
*hah!
One of my favorite professors, when handing out essay exam questions or paper topics, would warn “I’m suspicious of modifiers.”
Baseball fans, please read#71.
Have I enjoyed reading this post and the comments? Oh, most definitely.
Wonder how many “complete-game shutouts” those two will throw next year…
So i haven’t read through all the comments because there are a lot of them, but i feel like i should point out that in legal terms “unique” actually is defined by the courts as Joe’s second definition. So as always blame the law for confusing the meaning of things (coming from a law student during finals).
Joe,
The way to write that was what you said when you said what you meant–that “there has never been another trade quite like it.”
Joe, congrats on another column that is completely, absolutely, and utterly sui generis.
I found a way to work around the unique thing.
I build it in threes: Like…
“The deal was unique. It was more than unique. It was stupidly unique. It was trade your All Star second-baseman for a schnauzer-to-be-named-later unique.”
For most writers adverbs are weapons of mass distraction. Adverbs are the wah-wah pedal in the garage band of writing; agony in the hands of an amateur.
“The road to hell is paved with adverbs. Use them sparingly.” *
- Stephen King
(*See what he did there?)
Curtis — Al Hrabosky is now unfortunately a uniquely horrible color commentator on Cardinals tv broadcasts.
I think at the core of this unique discussion is a media member’s need to have their words, message, broadcast cut through the clutter so the masses will read/hear/see it and appreciate the subject (or at least the person commenting upon it).
As a child listening to sports on TV, broadcasters would toss around the word “unsurpassed” to describe something that unique or without peer. Although I always thought the term “unsurpassed”, when used in a sports comparison, was making reference to a pass made by Indy Car drive Al Unser, Jr.
When making a choice to use a word in a way that matches the common vernacular rather than the established definitions you are making a choice for language evolution. If you have ever read Tennyson’s Idylls of the King or Beowulf you get an idea what has happened to language. “So what?” you say. We lose a connection/understanding to our past. I think this is felt most deeply in a couple of areas. First in the law. I believe that people don’t understand the intent of the constitution and other similar founding documents. Disagree if you like, but please understand the original intent and argue against that rather than twisting the meaning. Secondly in religion people don’t understand original texts which is made even harder because in addition to seeming like a foreign language it often is, and an antiquated one at that. Modern Greek is often inadequate for interpreting 2000 year old Greek.
You may defend it, but I bet you’ll never use the phrase again, which tells you what you really need to know.
Alright, having run up against this problem myself and had the same reaction as you, I wrote something about it. N.B.: A discussion of this whole matter sustained an entire (12-hour) day of rainy hiking in New Zealand once for me, so I’m well versed with its one-of-a-kind ins and outs and distinctions.
I saw a girl on a high school soccer team named Unique.
Buffalo Sabres had Satan on their team. Isn’t that unique?
As a Grammar Vigilante, I say hit’em where they live. I refuse to go to a Tim Hortons until they give him his apostrophe. (Scarily, I am not kidding.)
Joe is a great writer, but I don’t much like the lead in that story. The biggest problem with it isn’t that “utterly” is extraneous, it’s that the whole thing is extraneous. “Utterly” isn’t the real problem. Why dance around, why not get right to the point?
“Well, you probably know by now that the three-way Roy Halladay-Cliff Lee-prospects-galore deal is utterly unique.”
Rather than beginning the piece by telling us that we probably already know what you’re about to tell us, why not start with what actually makes the trade interesting?
How about something like: “A Cy for a Cy? The Phillies and Blue Jays just swapped Cy Young award winners, the first time that’s ever happened.”
There’s a great book out there called The Power of Babel (I think Keith Law recommended it at one point) that addresses the evolution of language. One of the points that really stuck with me is the very thing you’re talking about here – that we add modifiers to already-strong words to make them even stronger. It’s not just that “we live in a time” when this goes on, but that it’s a very natural* feature of language.
*oops, I think I just did it myself.
And I agree with Brian (@72) – we throw the word “Nazi” around way too casually. I used some phrase like that around a German friend once, and he was horrified. Really made me think.
Matt, did you see a girl on a high school soccer team named Unique in a town named Alice, or did you see a girl named Unique on a high-school soccer team?
I think it’s funny that Tyler uses such bad grammar himself. He says “whether or not” which is ALWAYS a no-no (you can split it up if you want to, but those words never go together in that order), but then follows that up with another “or not.”
Instead of writing “I wasn’t certain whether or not you were using an inappropriate pairing of words in this regard or not,” Tyler should have just written, “I wasn’t certain whether you were using an inappropriate pairing of words in this regard.”
Yeah, and how about “As a Grammar Vigilante, I say hit’em where they live”? Is “hit’em” grammatical? I say it’s a non-grammatical contraction of “hit ’em,” which is itself a grammatical contraction of “hit them.”
Just goes ta show that nobody’s perfect.
But Chuck, some of us are completely perfect!
“Unique,” when used to mean simply unusual generally bothers me. Another one that gets me is the use of the word “literally” as a simple intensifyer. The opposite of “literally” is “figuratively,” and yet you encounter sentences like, “my head literally exploded.” Unless you have a bloody stump for a neck, you shouldn’t type that. (And if you do, kudos for being able to type). Fortunately, there’s a solutions to both problems: “…the three-way Roy Halladay-Cliff Lee-prospects-galore deal…” was literally unique.
That way, you get the point across while simultaneously doing your part to save the historical (and useful) meanings to two different endangered words.
kds –
I prefer to think of myself as uniquely perfect.
“Unique needs no modifier. Very unique, rather unique and totally unique are incorrect, and they mark you as dumb. Although certainly not unique.”
–George Carlin