The Absolutism of Uniqueness

Dr. Andy might just share this with students whenever they insist on misusing the word "unique."

As someone who has taught college students writing for the last 35 years, I may be uniquely qualified to comment on the misuse of the word “unique.”

In 1970, Los Angeles Times columnist Jack Smith declared that “it is almost a lost cause to argue that ‘unique’ means unduplicated… Everything is more unique than everything else.” More than half a century later, his lament still rings true. The word “unique” has drifted from its original sense—one of a kind—into a catchall for noteworthy, special, or different.

In the hundreds of classes that I have taught, I have seen this small erosion of meaning mirror a larger cultural trend: the surrender of precision to emphasis. I come across so many “emphasis” words – often adverbs, they include “amazingly,” “incredibly,” and “extremely” – that I have created an acronym, “ONI” that reminds student writers to “omit needless intensifiers.”

Students (and podcasters and YouTubers) often seek to use “unique” as another intensifier, but doing so often halts the forward momentum of the reader who knows what the word actually means.

Unique is misused in so many ways that they deserve to be listed so we can discern and distinguish their “unique” properties.

1. The relative fallacy

Some students treat unique as if it were a sliding scale, writing that one thing is “more unique” than another. This is like claiming to be “more married” than your spouse, or that the water in your glass is “more wet,” the way Kristin Wiig’s hair-twirling Penelope is always trying to one-up people with her “deep breaths” and such on Saturday Night Live. In standard English, something either is or isn’t one of a kind.

2. The “special” substitution

Writers often use unique when they mean unusual or distinctive. A cat wearing a bow tie may be distinctive, but it is not unique. In a world with the Internet, we can safely assume there’s another cat in formalwear somewhere, especially so close to Halloween.

3. The unnecessary booster

“Very unique” and “kind of unique” sound earnest but self-defeating. “Unique” already carries its own emphasis. Adding modifiers to the word would be like putting training wheels on your racing bicycle in order to participate in the Davis 4th of July Criterium. As Jack Smith says, “There are no degrees of uniqueness, except in American advertising.”

4. The context-free compliment

“Her essay is unique” tells us little. Unique how? Because of the subject, the tone, or the number of exclamation points? A claim of uniqueness gains force only when the writer explains the basis for it. One thinks of the Cambridge dictionary definition of “faint praise”: “praise that is not very strong or enthusiastic, suggesting that you do not admire someone or something very much.” In American English, if you do not admire someone very much, you actually don’t admire him at all. At this point, everyone reading this is probably thinking of a man who is difficult to admire.

5. The praise-inflation problem

Even some teachers use the word “unique” as a generic thumbs-up. “Your argument is unique,” offered with a smile and a nod, usually means “I liked it.” Classroom leaders should instead describe what makes something work, such as its evidence, structure, or insights. Precision makes praise more believable and helpful, no matter your writing task. As Nabokov once said, “A writer should have the precision of a poet and the imagination of a scientist.”

6. The category confusion

Writers sometimes apply “unique” to a group: “Each student wrote a unique five-paragraph essay on the same topic.” If they all followed the same template, they are not unique. They are simply compliant. Groups are typically heterogeneous, and that’s why we like them.

7. The historical drift

The overuse of unique reflects a larger linguistic slide. We like intensity and exaggeration; understatement feels dull, or difficult to pull off. But restoring a word to its original meaning can remind students that clarity often carries more authority than excitement, and certainly more than insincerity. Consider this timeless advice from C.S. Lewis: “Don’t use words too big for the subject. Don’t say ‘infinitely’ when you mean ‘very’; otherwise you’ll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.”

8. The modest proposal

Let us reserve unique for the truly one-of-a-kind: a solar eclipse, a live and improvised jazz solo, a poem no one else could have written, you. For everything else, English offers an abundant vocabulary of distinction. Most words do not require a superlative to prove their worth. Consider how much weaker James Brown’s anthem would be if he sang “I feel very good” or, heaven forbid, “I feel unique.”

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I want to recognize those who visit my Substack the most often, including Luna, Jean, Ron, Myrna, and Maria, to whom I send sustained compassion.

Best,

Dr. Andy

Three trivia questions:

1. Internet Culture. What S-word do we use for low-quality media made with generative artificial intelligence?

2. Newspaper Headlines. What universally-loved entertainer released an October 8, 2025 video saying that she has been facing some health issues, that she appreciates everyone’s prayers, even prayers from her talkative sister, but that she’s not dead yet?

3. Four for Four. Which two of the following American titans of industry were the children of immigrants: William Boeing, Henry Ford, John D. Rockefeller, Cornelius Vanderbilt?

P.S. Local educator Chris Erickson will be reading from his new novella HENRYTOWN October 16 at 7 p.m. at Poetry Night in Davis. If you are local, you should join us.