MEMO

[fox]

to:  ALL ENGLISH SPEAKERS EVERYWHERE
from:  ME
re:  RAAAR

ATTENTION EVERYONE:

UNIQUE ≠ UNUSUAL.  THE WORD MEANS 'ONE OF A KIND' AND THAT IS ALL IT MEANS.

i'm sorry to raise my voice, but honestly.  this has gone on long enough.

Comments

[jgesteve.livejournal.com]

Actually by logical extrapolation an item that is unique is perforce unusual (i.e. not usual), however an item that is unusual is not necessarily unique... that whole a square is a rectangle, but a rectangle is not a square thing.

[darthfox.livejournal.com]

[reads this]

true.

but it is still not okay to use 'unique' to mean merely 'unusual'. what prompted the rant was a commercial for a place not far from here advertising 'unique items that you've never seen anywhere else'. well, like, if they're unique, i couldn't have seen them anywhere else, could i? and don't even get me started on wrongnesses like 'incredibly unique'. RAR.

[darthfox.livejournal.com]

but the more i think about it, the more i'm okay with the expression unique ≠ unusual. unique ∈ unusual, of course, but they're not equal. unique ⊂ unusual, but ¬(unique ⊆ unusual).

just to get thoroughly geeky and formal-semantic about it. :-)

[king-chiron.livejournal.com]

So what's something that's unique but not unusual, that is, unique and usual?

[darthfox.livejournal.com]

as 'unique' means 'singular', there can be nothing that is both unique and common.