While I am in the camp that agrees unique, by definition, carries no modifiers, I think the temptation to do so is not exclusively about rarity. Something can be unlike any other items on many dimensions. A movie can be the only movie to star a real penguin in a speaking role, the only movie to have each of the main characters speak a different language, and the only movie to have its world premier on the White House lawn. That’s “more unique” than the only movie to star Danny DeVito as a serious romantic lead in an otherwise typical romantic comedy. It is unique on more dimensions. That’s where I think the temptation to modify unique comes from.
Or Two gentlemen standing next to an eviscerated corpse?
“Is he dead yet?”
“QUITE dead.”
Though that’s usually reserved for sarcasm or comedy I’ll admit.
Wait… it doesn’t anymore? I’ve never heard it used in any other context.
Yes, it’s (generally) saying that it’s unique on one or more levels, not that it’s more “one of a kind.” A lot of times you’ll hear it phrased as “it’s pretty unique in that regard,” which means “while it may otherwise be completely a normal squirrel, it does have the unique aspect of being able to shoot lasers!” It’s referring to a “sum” of the parts, like if you added the number of “unique” parts up and described a descriptor based on the value you get when compared to similar objects,
“I’m too old for this shit.” Somewhere I read that if you hear this as a movie line, it’s a virtual guarantee the movie sucks. I tend to agree.
Y’all
M.I.L.F
Baby Mama
Y’all catches an inordinate amount of shit because of its relationship with the south, but there is really no better alternative in English for you plural. “Y’all” haters should at least admit that yous and yins sound just as stupid, and you all often sounds akward in spoken conversation.
What about “you lot” and “all of you”?
Then again, as usual, I’ve been told I talk weird.
Too long. Part of what makes “y’all” so perfect is its brevity.
Sincerely dead?
That’s not how I use it. It’s more like, “We have a particular set of facts or circumstances, and we have to deal with them as they are, not as we wish they were.”
Often people respond to bad situations by trying to minimize the situation, or explain it away, or rehash how they arrived at the situation. “It is what it is” just means that whatever the explanation may be, or whatever we may think about the situation, we still have to deal with the situation.
I always wondered why this one bugged people so much. Maybe other people use it differently than I do. (And yes, I find myself using it a lot.)
I talk fast and tend to descend into extreme sesquipedilian loquaciousness on occasion, talking to me is often like listening to a Zero Punctuation review without the British accent. Y’all doesn’t have enough syllables for me I guess. (Yes, I know this is a terrible way to speak, but I can’t help it sometimes)
Just don’t say You people."
As for my phrases I’d like to see retired:
“If you don’t like it here, then go get another job.”
and
“Life isn’t fair”
The reason it annoys me is because I first heard it in a college freshman philosophy class several years back. The professor, who honestly was a little bit airheaded herself IMO, would just out of nowhere break into these refrains of incredibly meaningless phrases like, “A is A. A thing is what it is,” and then sort of stare off into space for a few seconds as if she had said something very profound. A few years after that when I started working in a corporate environment I began hearing salesmen and moronic office drones spouting it literally dozens of times every day, and it still sounded just as vapid-- and these people didn’t even have PhDs. It’s sort of become an officer-worker stopword, like how if you’ve ever been around a lot of lower class people you know that one guy who always fills in the blanks with some form of fuck or younah’msayin’ when his mouth is working faster than his brain.
There you have an example of language use evolving to meet a need for increased precision via increased subtlety of differentiation. Here, the use of adverbs allows expression of the *amount *of difference between the unique thing being described and all other things. It thereby allows *greater *precision of communication than would a ban on modifying “unique,” and should therefore be welcomed instead. It is not simple sloppiness or ignorance, but the opposite.
Here’s one more, now that it’s an anachronism:
“Film at 11”
Or it could mean that after you meet with that hooker on Craigslist and it goes the way it usually does you have to call your friend and tell him that she is shovel-ready.
Every time I hear the expression, I think of Tito Ortiz who is 1) a jerk, and 2) married to Jenna Jameson.
Don’t be hatin’ on the stative verbs in the progressive aspect!
Oh, I remembered my own pet peeve – “one of the only”, used to mean “one of the few” or “one of only a few”. I don’t remember hearing this phrase prior to the last few years, but it seems to be slowly spreading. People don’t seem to realize that it has no meaning beyond “one of all the X’s in existence”. Hey, I’m eating one of the only McDonalds hamburgers ever made!
“Think outside the box.”
Usually said by people who have more platitudes than original ideas.
Ok, for you we will make an exception. 
Never heard of him. Can we reserve its use for that couple only? 
Way to think outside the box in order to reach a compromise! Agreed. Ortiz is an MMA fighter, if anyone cares.