2021-02-20 ศัพท์ น่าสับสน ชุด U – unique
2021-02-20
ศัพท์ น่าสับสน ชุด U – unique
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Dictionary.com
ออกเสียง unique = ‘yoo-NEEK’
Dictionary.com
USAGE NOTE FOR UNIQUE
Many authors of usage guides, editors, teachers, and others
feel strongly that such “absolute” words
as complete, equal, perfect, and especially unique
cannot be compared because of their “meaning”:
a word that denotes an absolute condition
cannot be described as
denoting more or lessthan that absolute condition.
However, all such words have undergone semantic development
and are used in a number of senses,
some of which can be compared by words like
more, very, most, absolutely, somewhat, and totally
and some of which cannot.
The earliest meanings of unique
when it entered Englisharound the beginning of the 17th century
were “single, sole” and “having no equal.”
By the mid-19th century unique had developed a
wider meaning, “not typical, unusual,”
and it is in this wider sense that it is compared:
The foliage on the late-blooming plants is more unique than that on the earlier varieties.
The comparisonof so-called absolutes
in senses that are not absolute is standard
in all varieties of speech and writing.
See also a, complete, perfect.
Dictionary.com
The Most Insincere Compliments
And What To Say Instead
A better wordfor unique
This final word, unique, has long been the source of controversy.
The word unique comes from Latin by way of French.
It literally means “existing as the only one or sole example.”
In other words, unique is a so-called “absolute” word, like perfect.
Some argue that this means it shouldn’t ever be modified,
as in “that is very unique.”
But our problem with unique isn’tthis issue.
Because the word unique is used so frequently,
the sense that it describes something singular
or irreplaceablehas been lost.
That’s why we prefer these alternatives:
- extraordinary: This word communicates that something stands out from the crowd.
Your work is truly extraordinary.
- incomparable: Typically, this word is used for things that are superlative,
especiallywhen it comes to performance or beauty.
The soprano’s voice is incomparable.
- peerless: This one applies to people who are incomparable.
My aunt has peerless fashion sense.
Try to add these words to your compliment grab bag.
You’ll be surprised how much folks appreciate praise
that isn’t just “good job.”
While we can offer suggestions about better words to use,
our best piece of advice is to use as many details as possible.
Let the person you are complimenting know that
you notice the specific work they put into what you are praising.
Say what part of the story you liked best,
mention that you noticed their effort to work late every night,
or describe how a particular moment made you feel.
And throw in a few remarkables and a delightful,
and you’re well on your way to unique
1. used to mean 'the only one'
If something is unique, it is the only thing of its kind.
This is a unique opportunity.
Humans are unique because they have the capacity to choose what they do.
For emphasis, you can use words such as
totally or absolutely in front of unique.
By the late 1930's the country had full employment
-- an absolutely unique achievement.
You can say that something is almost unique.
You suffer from an almost unique mental condition.
2. used to mean 'unusual'
Some people use unique to mean 'unusual'.
They say, for example, that something is very unique or rather unique.
Oh, I say, that's rather unique, isn't it?
I realized I had hit on something pretty unique.
These uses of unique are generally thought to be incorrect.
for the superlative people in your lives.
COLLINS ENGLISH DICTIONARY
USAGE FOR UNIQUE
Unique is normally taken to describe an absolute state,
i.e. one that cannot be qualified.
Thus, something is either unique or not unique;
it cannot be rather unique or very unique.
However, unique is sometimes used informally
to mean very remarkable or unusual
and this makes it possible to use comparativesor intensifiers with it, although many people object to this use
Collins COBUILD English Usage
unique
1. used to mean 'the only one'
If something is unique, it is the only thing of its kind.
This is a unique opportunity.
Humans are unique because they have the capacity to choose what they do.
For emphasis, you can use words such as totally or absolutely
in front of unique.
By the late 1930's the country had full employment -- an absolutely unique achievement.
You can say that something is almost unique.
You suffer from an almost unique mental condition.
2. used to mean 'unusual'
Some people use unique to mean 'unusual'.
They say, for example, that something is very unique or rather unique.
Oh, I say, that's rather unique, isn't it?
I realized I had hit on something pretty unique.
These uses of unique are generally thought to be incorrect.
Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary
u•nique′ly, adv.
u•nique′ness, n.
usage:
Many usage guides, editors, teachers, and others
maintain that such “absolute” words
as complete, equal, perfect, and esp. unique
cannot be comparedbecause the condition they denote
cannot be more or less than it already is.
However, all such words have undergone semantic development
and are used in a number of senses,
some of which can be compared by words like
more, very, somewhat, and totally and some of which cannot.
The earliest meanings of unique when it entered English around 1600 were “single, sole” and “having no equal.”
By the mid-19th century unique had developed a wider meaning, “not typical, unusual,”
and it is in this wider sense that it is compared:
The foliage on the late-blooming plants is more unique than that on the earlier varieties.
Such comparison, though criticized, is standard in all varieties of speech and writing. See also a1, complete, perfect.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Choose the Right Synonym for unique
STRANGE, SINGULAR, UNIQUE, PECULIAR, ECCENTRIC, ERRATIC, ODD, QUAINT, OUTLANDISH
mean departing fromwhat is ordinary, usual, or to be expected.
STRANGE stresses unfamiliarity and may apply to the foreign, the unnatural, the unaccountable.
a journey filled with strange sights
SINGULAR suggests individuality or puzzling strangeness.
a singular feeling of impending disaster
UNIQUE implies singularity and the fact of being without a known parallel.
a career unique in the annals of science
PECULIAR implies a marked distinctiveness.
the peculiar status of America's First Lady
ECCENTRIC suggests a wide divergence from the usual or normal
especially in behavior.
the eccentric eating habits of preschoolers
ERRATIC stresses a capricious and unpredictable wandering or deviating.
a friend's suddenly erratic behavior
ODD applies to a departure from the regular or expected.
an odd sense of humor
QUAINT suggests an old-fashioned but pleasant oddness.
a quaint fishing village
OUTLANDISH applies to what is uncouth, bizarre, or barbaric.
outlandish fashions of the time
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language
u·nique′ly adv.
u·nique′ness n.
Usage Note:
Unique may be the foremost example of an absolute term
—a term that, in the eyes of traditional grammarians,
should not allow comparison or modification
by an adverb of degreelike very, somewhat, or quite.
Thus, most grammarians believe that it is incorrect
to say that something is very unique or more unique than something else,
though phrases such as nearly unique and almost unique
are presumably acceptable,
since in thesecases unique is not modified by an adverb of degree.
A substantial majority of the Usage Panel supports the traditional view.
In our 2004 survey, 66 percent of the Panelists disapproved of the sentence
Her designs are quite unique in today's fashion,
although in our 1988 survey, 80 percent rejected this same sentence, suggesting that resistance to this usage may be waning.
In fact, the nontraditional modification of unique
may be found in the work of many reputable writers
and has certainly been put to effective use:
"I am in the rather unique position of being the son, the grandson, and the great-grandson of preachers" (Martin Luther King, Jr.).
"The creature is so unique in its style and appearance that the biologists who discovered it have given it not just its own species name ... but have moved way up the classification scale and declared that it is an entirely new phylum" (Natalie Angier).
See Usage Notes at absolute, equal.,
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Can something be very unique or somewhat unique?:
Usage Guide
Many commentators have objected to
the comparison or modification (as by somewhat or very) of unique,
often asserting that a thing is either uniqueor it is not.
Objections are based chiefly on the assumption that
unique has but a single absolute sense,
an assumption contradicted by informationreadily available in a dictionary.
Unique dates back to the 17th century but was little used until the end of the 18th when, according to the Oxford English Dictionary,
it was reacquired from French. H. J. Todd entered it as a foreign word in his edition (1818) of Johnson's Dictionary, characterizing it as "affected and useless."
Around the middle of the 19th century it ceased to be considered foreign and came into considerable popular use.
With popular use came a broadening of application beyond the original two meanings (here numbered senses 1 and 2a).
In modern use both comparison and modification are widespread and standard but are confined to the extended senses 2b and 3.
When sense 1 or sense 2a is intended, unique is used without qualifying modifiers.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Words at Play
Is It Wrongto Say 'Very Unique'?
The unusual case of 'unique'
Adjectivesmake up about 20% of English words.
Some are modified frequently: very heavy, extremely tall, mostly sunny, seriously flawed.
But a substantial majority are rarely modified,
not because of any grammatical rule,
but simply because their meanings are so technical
or specific that they don’t need to be:
provable, midcourse, umbilical, ultraviolet.
These words have narrow applications
and often name a quality that does not exist in degrees.
They are rarely used in the comparative or superlative,
but this is a consequence of logic, not of grammar.
'Unique' is often cited as a word that should never be modified,
as its original meanings were "being the only one" and "unequaled."
But 'unique' has another meaning, "unusual,"
and it's common to modify the word when it's used this way.
Needless to say, people confuse logic and grammar.
Grammar is not logical.
Nevertheless, some grammarians insist that certain adjectives,
usually called “absolute adjectives,” can never be modified.
The grammarian Joseph Wright, for example,
in his A Philosophical Grammar of the English Language from 1838
(and like others before and since),
gave a list of adjectives “which admit of no variation of state”
—in other words, that cannot be modified.
His list includes words like square, dead, entire, false, and obvious.
And yet, evidence of actual usage shows that
almost square, nearly dead, whole entire, mostly false, and plainly obvious
are all commonly used and standard.
Which would make him very angry.
Another word in his list is excellent,
and it’s true that this is a word that is seldom seen in the comparative, though the superlative most excellent is common.
Arthur Conan Doyle modified excellent in a way that stands out to modern ears twice in the Sherlock Holmes stories—both times in words spoken by the Great Detective himself:
“You would oblige me by bringing your very excellent field glass.”
—Silver Blaze
“Your advice is very excellent, Miss Harrison.”
—The Naval Treaty
Very excellent is a good example of a plausible
but uncommon way to modify an adjective.
It might not be a very necessary phrase, but that’s not the point:
even Sherlock Holmes doesn’t apply logic to grammar.
It’s a good thing that Philosophical is in the title of Wright’s book,
since his list is more about ideals than linguistic reality. It’s a wish list.
The ideal that these list makers wish to uphold has to do with the purest interpretation of the definition of a word.
According to this idealistic interpretation,
a square must have four right angles,
or it is simply not a square;
false must mean only and exactly “not true.”
We know that neither word is always used in its absolute sense,
however, since angles might be “nearly square”
or an answer to a question might be “mostly false.”
Life is not made up of absolutes,
and language bends accordingly to accommodate. It does not break.
Unique is often cited as a word that should never be modified,
and it presents a special case because of the evolution of its meanings.
It comes from the Latin word unus (“one”),
and its original meanings in English were “being the only one”
or “sole” and “having no like or equal” or “unequaled.”
These meanings are about as absolute as they can be,
and are seldom modified.
However, words that are in widespread use
have a tendency to take on extended meanings,
and unique also came to mean something that was unusual or rare,
as in “a unique opportunity” or “a unique feature.”
The fact is, the original (and most absolute) meaning of unique
is the word’s least commonly used meaning today
(meaning “sole” or “only,” as in “the unique copy of my manuscript”).
But modifying unique when it means “unusual” is common:
The newest English sport is the race to create the most unique, high-concept specialty tea.
—Raphael Kadushin, National Geographic Traveler, January 2012
This is the on-the-mountain portion of the most unique partnership in skiing.
—Barry Svrluga, The Washington Post, 10 October 2010
The bacteria growing in and on the human body is so unique and so revealing that scientists believe germs will soon help catch bad guys.
—Mandy Oaklander, TIME, 31 August 2015
Our evidence shows that very unique is much more frequently used
in spoken English than in professionally edited writing,
which means that it is understood to be more informal
and should be used with care.
Though there is no strict rule of grammar
that prevents modifying these adjectives,
we must remember to be very careful.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Words at Play
We Made You a Bunch of Usage Limericks
Unique
A teacher of some reputation
Told students his greatest frustration
“It causes me pique
When you say most unique
Such words should have no gradation”
Unique is thought of by some people as belonging to
a class of wordsknown as absolute adjectives,
which are adjectives that allow no degree of variation.
Other words commonly thought of as absoluteinclude perfect and supreme.
One of the definitions we provide for unique is “very special or unusual,” due to the word having been used in this sense by many people, for many years.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
unique
Once upon a time usage books were quite a bit stricter
about which adjectives were gradable and could be modified
(such as fine, finer, and finest) and which were not (such as dead).
A writer in the early 19th century had a list of almost 100 words
which he claimed would “admit of no variation of state.”
Most of us feel fine grading our adjectives,
but there are still a few which are widely viewed as absolute;
among these is unique.
If you would like to read about whether
something can be very unique (or uniquest) you may do so here.
A school, of all things, described itself as very unique. An old-fashioned type, I do not hold with unique as un usual or rare. Definition 1, the only one of its kind, does not admit of qualifiers.
— Comment on unique by D. B., 2017
Dictionary of Problem Words and Expressions
Unique
This word means “having no like or equal”
and expresses absoluteness,
as do words such as round and square.
Logically, therefore,
the word unique cannot be compared;
something cannot be “more unique,” “less unique,” “more round” “less round.”
If a qualifying wordsuch as nearly is used,
the illogicality is removed.
“This is the most unique painting in the museum” is not standard,
but “This is the most nearly unique painting in the museum” is.
Unique is not only loosely used but overused;
for it, certain words can be substituted
on occasion such as novel, exceptional, remarkable,
rare, inimitable, peerless, incomparable, uncommon, and unusual.
See also INCOMPARABLE.
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