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A common grammar lesson that was taught to me in the US and that I've had to teach abroad in EFL classrooms is that we're not to use adverbs of emphasis with absolute modifiers, just as we're not supposed to use them as comparatives or superlatives.

Classic egregious examples of this mistake include very unique and more perfect, which seem obviously flawed to me. Other instances of further modified absolute modifiers are similarly meaningless or contradictory in nature.

I wonder, though, if the rule that I learned isn't overly broad, and whether it's taught similarly in the UK and elsewhere. I find myself modifying absolute modifiers quite regularly, and in some circumstances I think it's not only logical and correct, but quite meaningful. Phrases like almost exactly or virtually all or practically infinite possess a specific meaning that can't really be replicated using nonabsolutes like very nearly or most or quite long.

In my own speech and writing, I use such phrases exactly as I see fit, so this isn't a request for permission, per se. I'm more curious about whether there's a more appropriate rule regarding absolutes that you rely on (and might be used in a classroom).

Edwin Ashworth
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    Quoting a fellow mod and a linguist, "'Perfect' has many meanings, including 'proficient', 'lacking in no essential detail', 'of an extreme kind', 'corresponding to an ideal standard'. These meanings don't strike me as unable to have comparatives. Other meanings of perfect are binary." – RegDwigнt Oct 09 '11 at 02:07
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    "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union..." If it's good enough for the Constitution, it's good enough for me. – alcas Dec 30 '11 at 22:01
  • There is no problem in premodifying quantifiers / numerals / partitives: almost/nearly/virtually all, virtually none of .... almost a million / nearly half of .... I've changed 'modifiers' to 'adjectives' in the title question. – Edwin Ashworth Nov 18 '21 at 12:53

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What you are doing in the examples very unique, more perfect is using an adverb to intensify a strong adjective; it seems a fairly good rule of thumb that this is often stylistically inadvisable. There is a certain inflation of the intensity of the adjectives, and the adverbs can be accused of pleonasm (as in "a triangular triangle"). This rule is often referred to on both sides of the Atlantic, and in many other languages too.

However, your other examples do more or less the opposite: you use adverbs to weaken (or qualify) the adjective in almost exactly, virtually all, and practically infinite. That is quite different: there is no inflation of the intensity of the adjectives themselves, nor are the adverbs pleonastic.

Other concerns may arise, though, in the case of absolutes and classifications (I like Fumblefingers' categories). Sometimes it is not very satisfying to qualify the unqualifiable, as in she's a bit pregnant: she's either pregnant or she isn't, so it is probably better to say she looks a bit pregnant, if that's what you mean. I think that's almost exactly the same thing, while perhaps acceptable, is usually not to be preferred over that's almost the same thing: the adjective feels a bit wordy and is made redundant by the adverb. The examples with all and infinite are what Fumblefingers calls absolutes, which I think should be qualified without qualms, where appropriate.

Cerberus - Reinstate Monica
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    +1 for the (new to me) interesting idea that there's a clear-cut distinction between intensifying and weakening adverbs here. Intuitively I feel there's a tendency for intensifiers to be less acceptable than "weakeners" when used with non-gradable adjectives. Not that there's really anything wrong with feeling very alive, IMHO, but I bet there are more people saying things like "This place is a bit dead". – FumbleFingers Oct 08 '11 at 18:09
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    I agree. The bacteria are very 100 % dead sounds absurd, whereas they are almost 100 % dead sounds a bit odd but perhaps acceptable. It's just that intensifying something that cannot be any stronger than it already is gives more stylistic problems than otherwise, such as the inflation I mentioned (perfect doesn't mean "100 % good" any more, but just "excellent") or the redundancy. In very alive, the meaning of alive must have changed beforehand to make it acceptable, from not dead to lively; just so, a bit dead means somewhat like dead or something similar. – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica Oct 09 '11 at 00:02
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    I think that very unique is acceptable if the item in question is unique in many different ways. – TRiG Oct 09 '11 at 01:37
  • @Trig: Hmm, I'm not sure—could you give an example? – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica Oct 09 '11 at 02:58
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    @Cerberus: NGrans has over 80K instances of very unique. Every person is unique, but some are more unique than others. Here's an excerpt specifically discussing the statistical significance of variations in "uniqueness". – FumbleFingers Oct 09 '11 at 03:41
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    @Fumble: Haha, I see. Since this book refers to Orwell's "more equal" pigs, I presume you share my opinion of the use of very unique in general, with which Orwell himself would no doubt concur. – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica Oct 09 '11 at 05:31
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    I, too, find that distinction quite helpful (and quite teachable). Thank you for the insight. –  Oct 09 '11 at 07:11
  • @Cerberus: I think Orwell's original some animals are more equal than others was "doublespeak" (not that he ever used that word; many assume he did because we've conflated his coinages doublethink and newspeak). But he was more banging on about mass social control than misuse of language as such. Anyway, in the passage I linked to, it's hard to see how the writer could avoid couplings like very unique, since "types" of uniqueness were central to what he was talking about. And I don't object to his use of language at all. – FumbleFingers Oct 09 '11 at 19:15
  • @FumbleFingers: I still owed you a reply to this. Orwell was greatly concerned with language. He even argued that the world might be improved to some (slight?) degree by ridding English of hackneyed phrases, superfluous words, and needless complexity in his essay Politics and the English Language. Cf. his rule no. 3: "If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out." The phrase very unique sounds to me generally pleonastic; and, in this passage, vague. Compare that text to Orwell's example no. 4: it violates many of his rules. – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica Jan 11 '12 at 01:08
  • Crumbs! I remember my English teacher going over that essay a long time ago. I think at the time I pictured Orwell as God, and the teacher as his representative here on earth. Today, I'm a lot more suspicious of anyone who tries to lay down simplistic absolute rules about anything, let alone how to use language to best advantage. How would it be if we recursively applied Orwell's rule no. 3 to his own Animal Farm, for instance? Presumably we'd end up with "People are no better than animals. The End". True enough, I guess - but it's hardly great literature! – FumbleFingers Jan 11 '12 at 01:59
  • @FumbleFingers: Haha, right. But see his rule no. 6! And notice how he more or less excludes language that is not meant to be mainly functional. – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica Jan 11 '12 at 02:17
  • Let's not forget Rule number one: there are no rules. Once we accept that one, we can lay down "guidelines" to our heart's content (Hmm - curious usage, that. Why isn't it "heart's contentment")? – FumbleFingers Jan 11 '12 at 02:27
  • @Cerberus: My comment may not be exactly on point, but I feel compelled to add it, as it's one of my pet peeves: "free gift." It seems to me that by definition a gift is free. If a gift comes with strings attached, or if there is an expectation of some sort of remuneration, then it's not a gift, but something else. – rhetorician Jan 17 '13 at 02:14
  • @rhetorician: That is indeed a shameless pleonasm! – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica Jan 17 '13 at 02:51
  • There needs to be a better analysis of types of adjectives here. Huge for instance may well be called a 'strong' adjective. Something might be bigger. Boiling and empty are extreme adjectives. Unique, like dead, is an absolute adjective. Nuclear and weekly are classifying adjectives. It is illogical to treat the last three classes as gradable, though looser idiomatic handling (more full; very dead; very French) and tongue-in-cheek examples (very nuclear) are not uncommon. – Edwin Ashworth Feb 10 '15 at 15:26
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Not sure exactly what's being asked here. Do English language teachers still tend to warn against using grading adverbs with non-gradable adjectives? Probably, because the reason hasn't changed.

Grading adverbs (e.g. extremely, fairly, rather, very) vary the intensity (grade) of adjectives.

Non-gradable adjectives describe qualities which can't normally be varied because they're extremes (e.g. freezing), absolutes (e.g. dead), or classifications (e.g. nuclear).

But rules are meant to be broken — it would be a sad day for language if we weren't "allowed" to say, for example, "I feel very alive this morning".

TL;DR: Nothing's changed. Learn the basic principles first, then break the "rules" whenever it seems logical/eloquent to do so.

RegDwigнt
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FumbleFingers
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    I forgot to up-vote you. I agree in all respects about learning the rules and then breaking them. – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica Oct 09 '11 at 05:34
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    Yes, certainly, learn the rules first, break them later. This situation just struck me as one in which the modified absolutes that I find meaningful were too numerous to really be "exceptions to the rule." –  Oct 09 '11 at 07:13
  • I've only just noticed that I've plaged you here. – Edwin Ashworth Aug 24 '17 at 21:08
  • @Edwin: As you may also have noticed, I can be a bit slow on the uptake sometimes! :( It's just taken me over a minute to figure out that your *plaged* means *plagiarised* (not *plagued, which I struggled in vain to make sense of! :) And even then* it was another half-minute before it dawned on me that in principle (though not necessarily in practice), you might be deliberately (and whimsically) adopting my advice above (playing about with the rules of spelling and abbreviation to add interest and gently tease a reader who might be struggling to keep up! ). – FumbleFingers Aug 25 '17 at 14:29
  • Sadly, not umpteenth-level cunning. I think it was rather in the same vein as John Cleese's response to "You're a burglar, aren't you!?" ... "Erm ... a bit." (M-P sketch) A sin by any other name ... [may not sound quite as bad]. – Edwin Ashworth Aug 25 '17 at 16:12
  • The figure of speech known as "irony", operates around rule-breaking of this sort - very alive this morning being a clear instance. Following her first term at university my daughter commented that you could dress e.g. to look like a garden gnome, as long as you did it with KSPMI (knowing sense of post-modernist irony). Similarly you can break any rule of grammar provided you, and any reasonably intelligent person listening to you, knows that you are employing "irony". – WS2 May 20 '19 at 23:16
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It’s not a rule of grammar, but a matter of lexical choice. The question turns in part on whether the adjective being so modified does indeed represent an absolute value. Unique certainly has its origins in the notion of oneness and there are those who believe any departure from such a notion will lead to the collapse of civilization as we know it. The prophets of doom conveniently ignore, or pehaps have never known, that unique has been susceptible to modification from the early nineteenth century. The same can be said of perfect. In 1623 Bacon wrote:

Those works, which I had formerly published, . . being retractate and made more perfect.

while in in the late eighteenth century Gibbon wrote:

The heir most gratefully subscribed an agreement, which rendered my life-possession more perfect.

Barrie England
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I don't seem to see any reference to absolute intensifiers here (apart from in the English Club link), so at the risk of repeating a bit, here's how we teach it in EFL (BrE)

With gradable adjectives (happy, tired, surprised etc) the main intensifiers are:

very, really and quite (meaning partly). Later we'll add extremely, terribly etc

With ungradable adjectives (delighted, exhausted, amazed etc) the main modifiers are:

absolutely, really and quite (meaning 100%). Later we'll add totally, completely, utterly etc.

At advanced level we might divide ungradable adjectives into extreme adjectives and absolute adjectives, and show how these intensifiers strongly collocate with certain adjectives:

You're quite right; that's utterly wrong; it's perfectly ridiculous; it's absolutely perfect etc

In fact these are not really modifying the adjectives so much as emphasising them. So what about unique? Well, I'd never say "very unique". Not because of 'the unique squad', but for the same reason I wouldn't say "It's very fabulous", it doesn't sound natural English to me; we don't normally use very with ungradable adjectives. But I might say "totally or absolutely unique". The unique squad probably still wouldn't like it, but at least it would sound natural English.

However, I've just checked in MWDEU, and to my surprise they allow very unique, no less a writer than George Elliot having apparently used it - "A very unique child, thought I". It still sounds unnatural to me, but maybe I'll have to rethink.

RandomIdeaEnglish
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  • The way George Elliott writes very unique sounds fine to me, yet when I go to an EFL seminar and hear, "Our English teaching methodology is very unique." I cringe. Maybe someone will figure out why one is OK and the other isn't, but in the meantime I'll keep my dictionary handy so I can clobber any student who dares to say very unique in earshot of me. – Pitarou Feb 09 '12 at 05:11
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    Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary gives 3 meanings for 'unique': 1, being the only one of its kind - i.e. the traditional meaning - I think this is where you and I would cringe at 'very'. Their second meaning is: very special or unusual, where they say it's OK to use 'very', 'more' etc. I think this is more the way George Elliot used it. Their third meaning is: belonging to or connected with one particular person, place or thing, where I think we are back to absolutes. – RandomIdeaEnglish Feb 09 '12 at 21:58
  • @RandomEnglish Ah ... I get it now! 'Absolute' isn't a fixed category. Most 'absolute' adjectives really have a common absolute sense and a less common gradable sense. Thanks! – Pitarou Feb 10 '12 at 03:09
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I choose never to modify "unique." I feel unique means just that—"one of a kind." If something is unique, how can it more or less so? I fully agree that languages must grow and change, and I do not think that using "very unique" threatens Western civilization in any way. However, I admire clear and precise expression. Unique conveys precision. If we modify the word, we muffle the message. Besides, we have plenty of other words that can better serve our intent. A thing may not be unique, but it can be special, distinctive, unusual, extraordinary, superior, original, singular, or peculiar. The writer should choose words that clearly express the idea. To my thinking, "very unique" doesn't say anything clearly.

Lucas Hutton
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  • You certainly articulate a common position, but you do not address the matter of comparing two entities claiming to be unique. Which one, of the two, could be described as "more unique" without the linguistic freedom to ask the question? – Michael Owen Sartin Nov 26 '13 at 02:45
  • If two entities are competing for the title of "most unique," I submit that uniqueness may not really be the quality they're shooting for. Again, let's look at other words. One entity may be bigger, stronger, more expensive, more capable, or something else. The biggest problem I have with the word "unique" is that in many cases we use it only because it's the first word that springs to mind. In many instances—but certainly not all—another adjective would more accurately convey the message. – Lucas Hutton Nov 26 '13 at 14:18
  • quite right, but you can surely weaken it: almost unique etc. –  Aug 18 '14 at 13:12
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I think "very unique" or other qualifiers should be acceptable, because I think unique can have levels of intensity, if not by definition then at least semantically. Consider, for example, that compared to any other human on the planet, I am unique. I am also unique compared to an earthworm. It seems natural to say I'm more unique compared to the earthworm than I am to the other human, even though I'm still unique in both cases.

RegDwigнt
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Colin
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  • Not sure the example flies. You are not more unique compared to the earthworm, you are more different. To be unique you have to be part of the set — and you are not a worm. And anyway, what do you mean by "if not by definition then at least semantically"? A word's definition is all about semantics. – RegDwigнt Jan 16 '13 at 22:01
  • You are no more unique among the set of animals than the set of humans. You might be more obviously unique or more clearly unique, but you are just as unique. (Unless there are two or more of you, in which case you aren't at all). – Jon Hanna Jan 16 '13 at 22:18
  • @RegDwighт I meant connotatively – Colin Jan 17 '13 at 05:34