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Pedantic if you like but as with 'pregnant', you can't qualify 'unique'. You either are or you're not.
by vixen99 12y ago
Pedantic if you like but as with 'pregnant', you can't qualify 'unique'. You either are or you're not.
- coldtea 12y agoPedantic, but unlike pregant you can qualify unique. Unlike pregnant which is a binary (are/are not), unique means the quality of differing from other things, and this is a continium. Even the dictionary, in one of the terms for unique, gives a meaning that's not "unique" in a binary way at all: "not typical; unusual". If it wasn't a continuum we wouldn't have expressions like "totally unique" or the "most unique" used above (like we don't have for pregnancy). And they are not mere errors (like using your instead of you're etc.), they are used to express this notion, that something can be "different" than all other things in different deegres.
- SideburnsOfDoom 12y ago> Pedantic, but unlike pregant you can qualify unique. Pedantic, but you can't. Unique is not a gradable adjective. This is not just my opinion : http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2012/05/an-extremely-most-unique-opportunity/ http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2012/05/an-extremely-most... http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/grammar-reference/adjectives-gradable-non-gradable http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/grammar-reference/... https://www.englishclub.com/grammar/adjectives-gradable-non.htm https://www.englishclub.com/grammar/adjectives-gradable-non.... > we wouldn't have expressions like "totally unique" or the "most unique" I wouldn't normally bring this up, but while we're being pedantic, there are lots of reasonably common expressions that exhibit gratingly poor grammar or sematics. You have quoted two of them above. > unique means the quality of differing from other things, and this is a continium. Ah no. Unique means "one of a kind", not merely "differing". "uni" as a prefix means one, e.g unicycle, universe, unitard. "one of a kind"-ness is not continuous! As per the second link, "unique" already contains the idea of "very different".
- Tloewald 12y agoPedantic but the misuse of "unique" is semantics not grammar.
- SideburnsOfDoom 12y agoThank you for your pedantic addition ;)
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- JonnieCache 12y agoI thought we'd all learned to stop worrying and love descriptivism?
- SideburnsOfDoom 12y agoIf we are talking about descriptive linguistics "analyzing and describing how language is actually used" as opposed to formal rules ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_description http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_description ), then we must also love how the way that I use the English language differs from the way that you use it. And how my well-documented variant works too, and why they differ. I don't use "unique" that way. Do you want "unique" to be just a redundant synonym for "different" or not?
- JonnieCache 12y ago> Do you want "unique" to be just a redundant synonym for "different" or not? I could care less.
- SideburnsOfDoom 12y ago> I could care less. Maybe you could, but I could not ;)
- 12y ago
- learnstats2 12y agoNope on both counts. It's a common idiom to say that someone is 'very pregnant'.
- mryan 12y agoThat simply means they have a very large baby bump. It does not mean that they are "more pregnant" than a lady with a smaller bump. Pregnancy is a binary state.
- corobo 12y agoBeing pregnant is a binary state. Pregnancy is a process.
- mryan 12y agoOf course. The point still stands - a person either is, or is not, in state of pregnancy. I think that, from context, it was clear I was using "pregnancy" to mean "the state of being pregnant" and not referring to the nine month gestation period. That'll teach me to contribute to pedantry-focussed subthreads. :-)
- Retra 12y agoPretty much nothing is binary. Pregnancy is only approximately binary. Whether you're right or wrong about it certainly isn't. And nobody uses language in a binary manner.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- DonHopkins 12y agoThere's a perceptual dialectological difference between "hella pregnant" (Northern California) and "totally pregnant" (Southern California). Hella Nor Cal or Totally So Cal? The Perceptual Dialectology of California http://eng.sagepub.com/content/35/4/325.abstract http://eng.sagepub.com/content/35/4/325.abstract http://people.duke.edu/~eec10/hellanorcal.pdf http://people.duke.edu/~eec10/hellanorcal.pdf This study provides the first detailed account of perceptual dialectology within California (as well as one of the first accounts of perceptual dialectology within any single state). Quantitative analysis of a map-labeling task carried out in Southern California reveals that California's most salient linguistic boundary is between the northern and southern regions of the state. Whereas studies of the perceptual dialectology of the United States as a whole have focused almost exclusively on regional dialect differences, respondents associated particular regions of California less with distinctive dialects than with differences in language (English versus Spanish), slang use, and social groups. The diverse sociolinguistic situation of California is reflected in the emphasis both on highly salient social groups thought to be stereotypical of California by residents and nonresidents alike (e.g., surfers) and on groups that, though prominent in the cultural landscape of the state, remain largely unrecognized by outsiders (e.g., hicks). [...] By far, the most frequently remarked-upon slang term in the map-labeling data was hella, accounting for 47.4 percent of the slang and other lexical labels. Hella is a slang term originating in Northern California and one that remains—aside from a few brief moments in the national spotlight due to its circulation in popular culture— largely restricted to that region (Bucholtz 2006). The term, which apparently lexicalized from (a) hell of (a), functions as both a quantifier (There were hella people there) and an intensifier (He runs hella fast). Four respondents also mentioned the slang term hecka, the G-rated equivalent of hella, but this term was not counted separately, because tokens of hecka always co-occurred with hella. For Southern Californians in particular, hella represents a crucial shibboleth separating the two major regions of the state. As shown in Figure 7, respondents tended to identify hella overwhelmingly as a Northern California slang term, and its appearance in other regions of the map drops dramatically from north to south. Thus Northern California was variously labeled the hellas, Land of the Hella’s, and Hella capital, and one respondent provided an isogloss designating “the ‘hella’ line.” (In the map data, the Central Coast around Santa Barbara seemed to be the dividing line between users and nonusers of hella, and the fact that the study was conducted in this region may have enhanced respondents’ focus on this particular issue.) [*10: The respondent’s confusion may also be due to the existence of the Crips, a notorious Los Angeles–based gang.] Hella users were also negatively evaluated by Southern Californians, and the term came in for a good deal of criticism, such as Hella is not a real word and [hecka is] probably the worst word ever.
- chernevik 12y agoI think "most unique" works here, perhaps because I can read "most" as emphasizing the importance of the uniqueness rather than modifying its degree. Pedantry is attention to compliance with usage "rules" rather than the success of the expression.