The Wednesday Word Wise Roundup

• Not too long ago – don’t ask why – I was trying to think of what that little indentation between one’s nose and one’s upper lip is called. Not only didn’t I know it’s name, I had no idea how to even start a search for it (Google “little indentation between one’s nose and one’s upper lip”?). Then I read about the Visual Dictionary Online at Lifehacker and within about six seconds learned it’s called a philtrum (“small cutaneous depression extending from the lower part of the nose to the upper lip”). The Visual Dictionary Online, from Merriam-Webster, is illustration-based and as Lifehacker points out, it can help you “find the name of a whatsit.” It's also a load of fun to surf through.

• I’ve been ranting and raving for years about the use and misuse of the word “unique,” and a few weeks ago The Wall Street Journal’s online Style & Substance column weighed in (happily, on my side, even if that wasn’t its intention). According to the Journal: “Talent Scouts For Cirque du Soleil Walk a Tightrope: Ms. Giasson’s Tiny Acrobat Just Might Be Too Unique,” said the headline, resurrecting the perennial conundrum of whether there are degrees of uniqueness. The short answer, as we said ominously in May, is “not on our watch.” Because unique uniquely means one of a kind, we should say such things are too rare or too unusual….Then there is the issue of “unique” users aka “unique” visitors, an imprecise but often quoted measurement of the number of individual visitors to Web sites. When we use the term, we should use quotation marks around unique to indicate it’s an industry term that uses unique in a unique way.

Comments

[JP]

I disagree with all the fuss over this restricted usage of "unique." Much of the criticism of the comparison and modification no doubt comes from the word's use in advertising, but the word has been used in the sense of "unusual" or "extraordinary" by many reputable writers. And consider, if "unique" were to be used only according to the strictest criteria of logic, it could be applied freely to anything in the world, since nothing is wholly equivalent to anything else. Although traditional grammarians may condemn the qualification of "unique," its use is defensible. This word, like many absolute terms, has more than one sense and can be modified with grace in certain cases.

And I really question the whole use of the term "unique visitors" anymore. As Bill Walsh has stated: "Webheads writing for dimwits use this term to make it clear that multiple visits to a site by the same person are not counted as mulitple visitors. Duh! If you told me four of your relatives came over for dinner last night, I'd rule out the possibility that it was just one aunt and one uncle but both stopped out for a smoke at one point."

I tend to agree. Do we really need this modifier "unique" with this term anymore?

[Greg]

I think demanding quotes around the word unique when used as an industrial term is a bit ridiculous. Wouldn't you need to put quotes around every bit of technical language? Philosophy papers would have quotations around every other word.

As for the phrase "unique visitors", keep in mind that multiple visits by the same person *is* a useful metric to track, even if it might not be for relatives in a single evening. Something like "visitors" and "visits" would be a confusing way to label the stats. Unique specifies that you're talking about people that are one of a kind, not identical to any other people in your stats.

[Cindy Dashnaw]

Overuse has ruined unique just as it did awesome. Some things truly are unique and some acts truly inspire awe, but because of overuse, no one believes anything is unique anymore, and saying "awesome" makes you sound like a slightly outdated teenager. What makes one word more likely to be overused orally while another is more overused in writing?

[Helena B]

Enjoy your blog immensely. And thanks for making the type bigger! Much easier to read.