Comments on: What Is “Very Unique”?

By: Josiah Bartlett

Josiah Bartlett — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 06:22:46 +0000

That's not what a plot point is. And, since we're debating accuracy here, Sam didn't fire the speechwriter. The speechwriter worked for Nasa. His name was Scott Tate (which is strikingly similar to your name). His penalty for making this mistake was public humiliation, followed by the president instructing Sam to rewrite it. The episode is called "Galileo." Go watch it and don't ever reference an episode of "The West Wing" again!

By: Andrew Chestnut

Andrew Chestnut — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 20:55:24 +0000

As well as being "Extremely historical."

By: Guest

Guest — Fri, 21 May 2010 06:31:01 +0000

season 2 not 4

By: Jim

Jim — Sat, 05 May 2007 17:25:55 +0000

Since I am sitting in the united lounge it made think of the airline agents favorite phrase, “..Please take your seat this is a very full flight…”.

Its either full or almost full, my completely full would be more appropriate for the emphasis.

By: Will Herman

Will Herman — Fri, 04 May 2007 14:43:58 +0000

Perhaps the problem isn’t with the term “very unique,” but with the use of the word “very.” We only include very into the lexicon because adjectives in generally are flagrantly used. The only way to differentiate is to modify the adjective. If we all dropped the word “very,” perhaps the need for the word would cease. “Unique” should be a fine term to express the idea all by itself.

I’m very glad you posted this

By: Simon Brocklehurst

Simon Brocklehurst — Fri, 04 May 2007 11:54:44 +0000

What Dave said… To which I’d add – the word “very” should probably be banned for anyone that doesn’t want to sound like they have the vocabulary of a six year old! Other words on the “banned list” include “good” and “nice”…

Using banned words in combination is probably verging on the criminal e.g. “Our technology is very good and nice.”

By: Kevin Fox

Kevin Fox — Thu, 03 May 2007 19:42:52 +0000

The ‘very unique’ argument also made an appearance on a season 4 episode of The West Wing:

“‘Unique’ means ‘one of a kind.’ Something can’t be very unique, nor can it be extremely historic.”

http://communicationsoffice.tripod.com/2-09.txt

By: tlanger

tlanger — Thu, 03 May 2007 16:42:12 +0000

By: Dave

Dave — Thu, 03 May 2007 14:06:33 +0000

The pro-”very-unique” rant is based on poor epistemology and essentially denies that we can have objective categories. Things are “unique” only within a category, and further they’re usually only unique in the context of our experience since we haven’t observed every member of that category.

Better options include “unusual” (very unusual) and “distinctive” (very distinctive), with the latter being best applied to perceptual attributes and the former a more generic term.

Since we already have two perfectly good words for the situation, there is no reason to drag another into having the same meaning.

By: Scott Yates

Scott Yates — Thu, 03 May 2007 12:12:11 +0000

That was a plot point on West Wing once. Sam fired a speech writer for using “very unique” in a first draft of a presidential speech.

I thought it was appropriate.