Unique means one of a kind.

A thing is unique or it is not unique. Moreover, uniqueness is hard to obtain. As people, we are all unique. We are each one of a kind.

Unique is one of those unique words that usually cannot take a modifier. Can a person be very unique? Can a person be so unique? Perhaps if they are unique enough, they might even be one of a kind. Arghhh!!

As this is one of my favorite things to say, my wife cringes every time someone on television says that something is very unique. Ack, it drives me uniquely crazy. My kids taunt me at the dinner table saying, “They had a very unique day!”

Something, can be almost unique, almost one of a kind. But can one thing be more unique than another? For all of you on the edge of your chairs, I say it cannot, but I believe that I am fighting a losing battle.

USAGE NOTE: For many grammarians, unique is the paradigmatic absolute term, a shibboleth that distinguishes between those who understand that such a term cannot be modified by an adverb of degree or a comparative adverb and those who do not. These grammarians would say that a thing is either unique or not unique and that it is therefore incorrect to say that something is very unique or more unique than something else. Most of the Usage Panel supports this traditional view. Eighty percent disapprove of the sentence Her designs are quite unique in today’s fashions. But as the language of advertising in particular attests, unique is widely used as a synonym for “worthy of being considered in a class by itself, extraordinary,” and if so construed it may arguably be modified. In fact, unique appears as a modified adjective in the work of many reputable writers. A travel writer states that “Chicago is no less unique an American city than New York or San Francisco,” for example, and the critic Fredric Jameson writes “The great modern writers have all been defined by the invention or production of rather unique styles.” Although these examples of the qualification of unique are defensible, writers should be aware that such constructions are liable to incur the censure of some readers.

Via www.answers.com/topic/unique”>answers.com

Now here is someone who disagrees. Sigh!!! A Google search returns millions of usages of “very unique” (although some of them talk about how it is incorrect usage, HA!!!). Here is an article entitled, A List of Some Very Unique Baby Girls Names that You Might like to Use for Your New Baby Coming Soon.

Sigh, while I understand that language evolves and informal usage emerges. The word unique, is, well, unique. It would be a shame to lose that word. Although don’t slightly unique french fries sound delicious

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