[yodon]

I'll be that guy and point out that "Unique" is interesting because it falls in the same category of words as forever, infinite, dead, and pregnant, adjectives which do not take comparative qualifiers because they describe Boolean states. You don't get to be the most pregnant or most dead person in the room, or live more forever than your friend. You can have something that is Aleph-1 rather than Aleph-nought, but you don't get to have something that is more infinite that your neighbor. In a similar vein, your thing can not be more unique than your co-worker's thing though one of you may have the more unusual thing, just as you could live longer, be more injured, have been carrying more kids in your uterus for longer, or have something that is bigger, longer, or more expansive.

[ryandvm]

Excellent work, Colin Robinson.

However, I think I'd disagree. The reality is we all knew what OP meant because the colloquial (non-CS) definition of unique is just "very unusual". It isn't often in meatspace that humans are trying to distinguish completely physically unique items, so such a constrained definition is understandably rare in normal conversation.

[cardy31]

Lol nice reference

[DamnInteresting]

> I'll be that guy and point out that "Unique" is interesting because it falls in the same category of words as forever, infinite, dead, and pregnant, adjectives which do not take comparative qualifiers because they describe Boolean states.

In common contexts "unique" just means "unusual." It's like how "theory" can just mean "hypothesis" in normal discussion, but in strictly scientific contexts it only applies to explanations that are supported by a large body of evidence. So if one is in a rare context that is sensitive to the strict boolean definition of "unique," then you are correct. All other times (i.e., most of the time) you are incorrect.

When it comes to language, the most common usage is the correct usage. This may occasionally annoy us (see: "literally", "begging the question", etc.), but the fact is that languages are fluid and evolving, and there was no moment in history when the English language was frozen and declared perfect. Language is inherently democratic, and sometimes one is outvoted.

Granted, it's fine to try to realign the language to match your preferences, but more often than not this is a fool's errand.

[leephillips]

But can we form a more perfect union?