GRAMMAR SOAPBOX

My number one pet peeve when it comes to misuse of the English language is with the word "unique". Hardly a day goes by that I don't hear someone (usually on TV) say "very unique". I just heard it again from a scientist on Jimmy Fallon's Tonight Show. When describing her butterfly robot she said, "It is very unique technology." I wanted to scream....ARRGGGHHH!

There are no degrees of "unique"! Something is either "unique" or it isn't. Let me emphasize this again - THERE ARE NO DEGREES OF UNIQUE!!!

Okay, time to hop on my grammar soapbox for this blog post. I pulled out my copy of "The Elements of Style" by William Strunk, Jr. & E.B.White. Anyone who writes, for fun or for a living, will likely have a copy of "The Elements of Style". It is a skinny little book that addresses pretty much any question a writer may have regarding rules of usage, composition & misused words or expressions. It has stood the test of time - as far as I can tell from reading the title page & introduction, it dates back to 1919.

Here is what "The Elements of Style" says about the word "unique": "Means without like or equal. Hence, there can be no degrees of uniqueness."

Examples from the book:

"It was the most unique coffee maker available.", should be "It was a unique coffee maker."

"The balancing act was very unique.", should be "The balancing act was unique."

I hear intelligent, educated people say "very unique" all the time & I want to yell at them, "There are no degrees of unique! Unique doesn't need to be described." I am by no means a card carrying member of the grammar police but this one grates on me. I think we all have pet peeves that drive us just a tiny bit crazy. What are yours?

I decided to look up one of my lesser annoyances in "The Elements of Style" to see what their take was on one of my dad's favorite words. For as long as I can remember my father has used the word "irregardless". I always believed that it should just be "regardless". As I typed this, low & behold, my spell checker flagged "irregardless" as misspelled. I thought, "Yeah, because it's not a word."

Pulling my well used dictionary (next to my "The Elements of Style") from the shelf above my computer, I discovered that Webster's defines "irregardless" as "a substandard or humorous redundancy for regardless".

"The Elements of Style" says "Irregardless should be regardless. The error results from failure to see the negative in "less" & from a desire to get it in as a prefix". So, there you have it - "You're wrong, Dad!"

I should probably go back & read through the 95 pages of "The Elements of Style" again since I am guilty of many of the rules brought up by the authors. I have a tendency to use the word "so" too often (see above paragraph) when the book tells me to avoid it.

But I think the thing I need to work on most is number 17 in the "Principles of Composition" chapter - "Omit needless words". In the previous sentence I could leave out "But I think" & "most" making it "The thing I need to work on is number 17, etc. But I LIKE my needless words. They feel needed to me. The shortened sentence sounds awfully boring to me. I've always been a talker & tend to write that way, too. And don't even get me started on commas.