Earlier in the week I wrote a post about products being exclusively available in one department store being a misleading statement (things are either exclusive or they aren’t!) and it reminded me of an article I wrote in my newsletter some time ago (it was my November 2004 newsletter to be precise!)
Here is what I wrote back then:
Don’t over qualify
There are a group of words that have very precise meanings -= these words don’t need any qualifying to make them strong, and in fact it is grammatically wrong to attempt qualifying them.
For instance, the word ‘unique’ means one of a kind so something is either unique or it isn’t – ‘very unique’, ‘particularly unique’, ‘most unique’ and similar combinations are unnecessary.
Other words that are commonly misused in this way are:
Electrocuted – the word actually means to be killed by electricity, not receive an electric shock.
Perfect – means there can be no improvement; adding ‘very’ to it doesn’t serve any purpose.
Fatal – means deadly. An accident is fatal or it isn’t, it can’t be ‘very fatal’ or ‘really fatal’.
In most of these examples, they can be qualified by using a word such as ‘almost’ or ‘nearly’; the word unique, however, can’t be qualified at all.
What other words can you think of that are absolute in their own right?
Unique, definitely – as in ‘very unique’ or ‘quite unique.’ Raises this reader’s blood pressure every time!
).
Great blog, have enjoyed reading it (including the occasional rant, with which I sympathise
Thanks for your comment Minnie and I’m glad you can understand my occasional rants
I read about something the other day that was ‘practically unique’ and that really had me cringing!
[...] want to read the same article we found last week. In itself, that’s enough reason to provide unique content on your website, in your blog and so [...]