From: roger@crux.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig)
Subject: Re: quite unique
Originator: news@nimaster
Reply-To: roger@astro.princeton.edu (Roger Lustig)
Organization: Princeton University
Distribution: alt
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 04:59:12 GMT

In article <1992Nov16.023754.9072@news.columbia.edu> gmw1@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Gabe M Wiener) writes:
>In article <1992Nov15.180410.20206@Princeton.EDU> roger@astro.princeton.edu (Roger Lustig) writes:

>>I take it, then, that you've actually looked up "quite" and "unique"
>>in a dictionary or similar?  Again, I refer you to Evans and Evans,
>>who address the issue directly.

>I have, actually.  Unique means "being the only one of its kind."

Which dictionary told you only that?  One of those little paperbacks?
Try a MAN-sized one.  8-)

>That people also use it to mean "very unusual" doesn't mean much.

Sure it does.  It tells you the usage of the word.

>People use words incorrectly, unfortunately.  

Perhaps.  What does this have to do with the case of the different
meanings of "unique"?  Again, I refer you to an unabridged dictionary,
one that will inform you ofthe various meanings, all of them correct in
their contexts, of this word.  I refer you also to various discussions
of the issue you wish to sweep away by fiat.

>Some people use "unique"
>to mean "unusual" when we have a perfectly fine word "unusual" to use
>for that.  

"We already have a word that means that."  Translation: they're synonyms.
Guess what?  We have whole *books* of synonyms.  They're called 
thesauruses (or thesauri, if you swing that way).  Could you tell me
exactly when synonym became a sin?  Even when the other word was "perfectly
fine"?  (Also, can you tell me when, and by whom, "unique" was first used
"incorrectly" -- and why?)

>Some people say "imply" when they mean "infer."  Heck, some
>very good dictionaries make the mistake of naming "infer" and "imply"
>as synonyms.  

Translation: they didn't consult Gabe Wiener first.  He knows the 
English language as nobody else, and his word goes.

>That some dictionaries, or Evans and Evans or whoever,
>list "unique" as meaning "unusual" impresses me not.

Do their cogent arguments from evidence impress you not at all either? 
Does anything short of a blow on the head from a two-by-four impress you,
or are you too busy looking in the mirror at your All-Knowingness?

>>Now, having said that, what does "quite unique" have to do with the
>>"either/or" issue?  As I said (and you chose to delete), "quite
>>unique" can mean: not only unique, but also unapproached.  People
>>don't just use the word "unique" to mean "one-of-a-kind", simply
>>because such distinctions aren't made often.  Teh *degree* of
>>difference is also of interest in many cases.

>They may be of interest, and English is fraught with words to express
>those degrees.  Unique ain't one of 'em.

Still having trouble reading, eh?  Perhaps Hayes can take you along
to the optometrist's.  The above paragraph addressed the meaning of
"quite," not "unique."

>>As long as you don't care about what words mean, go ahead.  "Quite unique
>>has a fairly obvious meaning.  Too bad your irrelevant logic-chopping
>>is more important than actual standard usage.

>The 'standard usage'??  Wazzat?  The same usage that has people saying
>"me and my friends..." and "ten items or less" or other beastly 
>breaches of grammar?  

No, the standard usage that has people speaking English.  btw, do you
know what the word "grammar" means?  Do you know that no definition
of "grammar" (except the imprecise one you'd probably condemn if it
weren't part of your own usage -- the one meaning "usage") can possibly
address the "less/fewer" question?

>That sure isn't what I consider standard english.

Well, you'll just have to live with your own imperfection, then, because
"quite unique" (with "quite" meaning "truly") is standard English by
any meaningful definition of the expression.

>As for caring about what words mean, I care very much about what words
>mean, which is why I find the distinction between "unique" and simply
>"unusual" a valid and valuable one.

Yet you don't care about *how* words mean.  They mean in context.  They
mean by their relationships and by the environments in which they are
spoken.  They do not mean because someone says so, or because someone
once decided they were to mean.  

And again, I ask you: is hyperbole forbidden?  Can one not use "unique"
in a hyperbolic sense?  Hyperbole is a bad thing in instruction manuals
and legal briefs, but some of us write other things as well, and some
of us speak standard spoken English or colloquial forms similar to it.

Now, once again: what's wrong with "quite unique"?  I haven't heard a
single argument (as opposed to rants, pisses, and moans) against it.
And there is tons of evidence for its standard use.

>>>By using the word improperly (such as
>>>in "more unique" and other beastly abuses), the weight of the word is
>>>lessened.

>>Bull.  By getting snippy about one meaning of a word long acknowledged
>>to have several meanings -- controlled by context, of course -- you
>>show that you're more interested in putting people down than in listening
>>to what they're saying.

>>Or are you telling me that you're not bright enough to figure out 
>>what "unique" means in a given context?

>Gee whiz, look who's getting snippy now?  We can figure a lot of
>things out from context.  If someone says "Me and my friends is the
>uniquest," we can figure it out from context.  It has nothing to do
>with being "bright enough" as you well know.  It just so happens that
>words in a language have individual meanings, and there's no reason to
>use the wrong word.

You still haven't told me what's wrong about it.  The silly sentence
you cite above is non-standard by dint of the fact that nobody talks that
way, and that nobody who uses standard dialects speaks anything like it.
(Mencken observes "uniquest", btw. -- read what he has to say about
vulgar speech.)      

Now, as to words in a language having individual meanings, that's true.
Some words have *several* individual meanings.  My stock example: "head."
A small dictionary I have here gives 31 utterly standard meanings of the 
noun, 12 utterly standard adjectival meanings, and four for the verb.
How on earth do we manage?  Shouldn't we be using other words most of 
the time we use "head"?  Shouldn't someone pass a law against all this
metonymy and metaphor and hyperbole and what-not?  

>I am once again amazed at your never-ending ability to turn people's
>grammatical errors into Roger's own acceptable usage.  

I am not at all amazed anymore at your utter ignorance of the meaning
ofthe word "grammatical."  "quite unique" is grammaticaly correct, 
period.  Even the usage-choppers admit that; it is simply an adverb
modifying an adjective.  That's permitted in English.

Moreover, I have not turned anything into anything.  I have observed
that the phrase *is* standard usage, that it has good reasons for not 
being rejected, that it is considered an acceptable modification by
many authorities on language WHO GIVE REASONS FOR WHAT THEY SAY -- a 
technique you might try from time to time -- and that nobody I know
has advanced an argument -- as opposed to a simple "yea" or "nay" --
against it.

>I'm also once
>again not surprised at your inability to disagree without being rude.

Read the posting I'm responding to here.  You accuse me of all kinds of
things I have not done -- without evidence.  You call all kinds of 
perfectly common usage "wrong" -- without evidence.  You speak of 
"people's grammatical errors", accusing them of ignorance -- without
even knowing what you're talking about.  You call colloquialisms 
"beastly breaches of grammar."

And you call *me* rude?  Your whole approach is based on insulting 
people who are speaking English that has no flaw except for its
lack of the Wiener Seal of Approval.  You spatter your prejudice 
everywhere you go, and never deign to give a reason for anything
you say, other than "it's not correct."

Roger

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