But if you want to pin the current changes in "unique" on anthing, the villain is probably advertising. Advertising exists almost solely on superlatives. Everything has to be the greatest, the best, the most unique, the one and only, the genuine original. It only takes a few years of exposure to this stuff for a young person to figure out that "unique" is no longer an word reserved for the rarest instances of something. That daily exposure has more effect than any grammarian would, and select pockets of people resisting this would really change anything.

Advertising has dulled the power of adjectives as much as cable has dulled the power of profanity. And there's really nothing we can do about any of it.

"Unique" simply doesn't mean what it once did. It doesn't mean "like no other" as much as it means "having individual qualities." The dictionary's haven't caught up with the change? Dictionaries are always trying to catch up. Eventually they will.

I wasn't aware that there had been changes to the word "unique". Maybe you have to live in the USA to notice the changes. Not sure why Joe, being an academic, is all too eager to make excuses for sloppy, lazy, language.

To get back to those two exceptions, let me finally paraphrase Frank Morgan to Spencer Tracy the year of Boy's Town: I didn't see Blind Side, Sandra, but you certainly deserved an award for that acceptance, both funny and sincere, spontaneous, emotional and, SASSY partisanship inclusive, genuinely appreciative of the fellow nominees. Plus, that was hands-down one of the night's best gowns, sheer old-school elegance. Loved it.


and how Mrs. Gummer, sensibly knowing it was not her night, endearingly elected to leave her gown at home and just wear the ivory wraparound overcoat;

Inlare,

Not sure if you know the answer to this, but considering the behemoth Oscar has become, and the fact that almost no one outside the categories nominated care about them, why is the evening show not reduced to Picture/Director/Leading/Supporting and maybe Cinematography/Editing/Music? The rest moved to afternoons like so many of the other technical awards? Has this been seriously suggested and shot down?

(and thanks for the Judy answser, by the way)

2009 goes into the books as a good year for film, but it leaves us without the legacy of a memorable catchphrase or an iconic scene to remember it by.

The copy chief at my last full-time job never fixed the wrong use of "lie" and "lay" because she thought it was fussy and elitist to insist on "I was lying down" when someone wrote "I was laying down." That was one of the absolute disagreements between us. A slip between "who" and "whom" I can allow, but not "lie" and "lay," regardless of the fact that nobody ever seems to get it right anymore.

Funny, I had lunch with a fellow out-of-work but very experienced copy editor yesterday and we were talking about our pet peeves. We both wince at the way people constantly say "with you and I," "between you and I," "join Jane and I," etc., not only in conversation but on TV and in commercials and even in movies (doesn't anybody copy edit these scripts?). No wonder everyone seems to think it's correct, since it's heard everywhere. But would they say "come with I" or "join I at the game"?