VERY UNIQUE In the 1906 edition of The King’s English, H. W. Fowler declared—and he was neither the first nor the last person to so declare—“A thing is unique, or not unique; there are no degrees of uniqueness; nothing is ever somewhat or rather unique, though many things are almost or in some respects unique.” I will allow that something can be virtually unique but can’t be more than—not very, not especially, not really—unique. You might as well hang a KICK ME sign on your writing.*12
