by Eva van Loon

“The most unique books in the world!” gushed the Harry Potter fan.
“One of the single largest operations the province has seen….” read a local paper.
“One of the only all-Canadian teams in the game!” boasted the coach.

These actual speakers are well on their way to fluent ENGLESE. They understand that today, vagueness is a virtue. To be a fluent speaker of Englese, one must learn the fine art of waffling. Learn to mess with the language of uniqueness.

Today’s old farts grew up in a world that not only believed in the comparative and superlative—as in good, better, best; or ugly, uglier, ugliest; and fabulous, more fabulous, most fabulous--but also believed that a few phenomena are beyond such comparison, In Standard English, truly extraordinary things merit words meaning singularity. Unique, like only, means there’s only one, just as unicycle means just one wheel but bicycle means two wheels.

Don’t tell one woman her beauty is unique and the next she’s more unique—unless you like being slapped. Don’t call one team the best on Tuesday and another team the best on Wednesday—you’ll hear complaints. And don’t claim your business is the only such venture in the province—you’re risking a lawsuit for false advertising from entrepreneurs like you who believe their gig is an original.

Being slapped, sued, and complained about are unpleasant. Smart ENGLESE speakers opt for fuzzing up the concept of uniqueness. Why stick one’s neck out? On a planet this crowded and messed up, there’s bound to be another version of the unique woman, the only team, or the single largest business somewhere, isn’t there?

Standard English is too risky, and too much work. To claim an operation is “the single largest the province has seen” or a team is “the only all-Canadian” means you’d better do the homework before blathering. That’s a lot of research.

As for unique, it’s a two-edged sword. Unique books could be uniquely good—or uniquely bad. A woman of unique beauty…could look at you sideways and decide looks can kill.

Being only…is lonely. Why risk it? Go ahead: be a real ENGLESE speaker: fuzz it up!

Englese / Standard English (SE)
more unique, / unique
most unique

one of the only / one of the few
one of the single best, / one of the best, largest
largest, etc.