"You can't say 'more unique,' or
'very unique,'" is a thing pedants sometimes say. "Either
something's unique or it isn't!" But is that really true?
First, we have to determine what exactly we mean by "unique."
Isn't it self-evident? No, not really! And if you're a pedant, you
have to care about exactitude in definitions.
If we think "unique" must
denote an absolute, there are two ways we could potentially think of
it. First, we could posit that something is unique if any
aspect of it is different in any way from something else, down to the
molecular level. But that's not really useful, is it? It would mean
that everything, even mass-produced products, are "unique"
in a really trivial and meaningless way.
Alternatively, we could say that
something is unique if and only if absolutely every aspect of it is
utterly dissimilar from anything else--again, down to the molecular
level. However, this seems equally unhelpful, as it means that
absolutely nothing is unique.
So what do we do? What do you mean
when you call something "unique" anyway? It's pretty
obvious that if I call this animal or that academic program unique,
I'm not using either of the above definitions. Rather, I'm--wait for
it--talking about something somewhere in the middle. It's clear
that, for all practical purposes, there's a sliding scale of
uniqueness, and if you attempt to hew to absolutes you just define
the word out of useful existence. Hence, it's perfectly okay to say
that something is more unique than something else or, indeed, very
unique, queue ee dee.
I suppose you could make a better case
for "perfect," but only a little. In any case, why bother? Does being tedious really bring you that much personal satisfaction?
