Uniqueness modifiers
One of my pet peevs over the last few years when I was doing lots of product evaluations was the abuse of the word ‘unique’ by some of the sales droids I encountered. If you’re reading this now you know who you are, and well done for persevering with this blog, I know that I use some big words sometimes.
Unique is like the Highlander, there can be only one.
A product that is ‘very unique’ isn’t somehow better than being the only product of its type, which it would be if it was simply ‘unique’. In my view ‘very’ is a negative uniqueness modifier – like all the others.
‘Fairly unique’ isn’t good either. If a service is described as ‘fairly unique’ then that’s code for “we like to think that we’re differentiated, but in truth there are many like us”.
I notice that the US based Websters dictionary allows for degrees of uniqueness like ‘fairly’, which I take as an acceptance of common abuse rather than the correct English meaning of the word.
Filed under: grumble, marketing | 2 Comments
Tags: marketing, sales, unique
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My personal favorite is relatively unique – as in our approach is relatively unique in the marketplace.
And as far as the Highlander is concerned, why was the only person with a real Scottish accent cast as a Spanish prince? I sat one table away from Sean Connery last year at a bar in the Upper East Side watching the Six Nations Rugby. He (along with Sony’s Howard Stringer) does actually enjoy watching the game.
Can we decapitate any salesdroids who abuse the U word in future?
Preferably with a Japanese katana…