1-9-90 It was springlike: sunny and dry with a high temperature of seventy-four degrees [Fahrenheit]. It won’t be long before every day is like this. I took advantage of the good weather to ride my bike fifty-seven miles on my Venus route. My average speed was 17.50 miles per hour, which is more than acceptable. I started out strong, with an average speed of 21.65 miles per hour for the first ten miles and 19.11 at the end of thirty miles, but fizzled in the face of a northerly wind during the second half of the ride. I averaged only 14.95 miles per hour during the fourth ten-mile interval. Although I enjoy certain aspects of riding alone, such as the time to reflect on my life and the surroundings, I would also like to have one or more companions during these long rides. Not just anyone, mind you: It would have to be someone who is physically fit, because I don’t have time to waste and I don’t particularly care to “babysit” people out on the road. He or she would have to enjoy bicycling for its own sake and not view it simply as a way to lose weight or see the countryside. Although these things are important to me, they’re not the reasons I ride. I ride for the satisfaction it brings: the feeling of well-being, the sense of discipline, and the joy of exertion. I guess you could say that I have several motivations for bicycling. It has become an integral part of my life.
The word “unique” has some interesting features. It has long been held that it cannot be modified, for instance by saying “that’s a very unique X”. According to conventional wisdom, a thing is either unique or it is not, depending on whether it is “the only one of its kind” (Oxford American Dictionary, page 755). If there is more than one such object, then it cannot be, and hence is not, unique. I want to challenge this dogma and defend common usage. First, notice that a given object, X, has or can have many features. It can be blue, round, weigh five pounds, and have a shiny surface. In any of these respects it can be unique in the dictionary sense. That is to say, X can be the only blue thing, the only round thing, the only thing that weighs five pounds, or the only thing that has a shiny surface. Thus, to say that an object is unique is always to say or imply that it is unique in some respect. It is to say that it is the only object in the category for which the feature provides the label. Now suppose I say that X is “very unique”, meaning that it is the only object in several categories. If X is the only thing that weighs five pounds and the only thing that has a shiny surface, then it is unique in two respects. A thing that is unique in two respects can be viewed as more unique than a thing that is unique in only one respect. Perhaps that is what people mean when they qualify the word “unique”. They are comparing the number of respects in which two or more objects are unique.
Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. 