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"etymology: unique" on Google gives http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=unique and http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/unique#Etymology.

With definitions "forming the only one of its kind" and "being the only one of its kind". I don't have a trillion unique bits of memory on my SSD, as they are all interchangeable.



What are better words to use?

Would it matter if the audience is international or if the audience mostly has English as a first language?

"70 Different Ways to Encode〈"?


"70 Distinct Ways to Encode <" would be the traditionally correct way to say it. I should have made that more clear in my original rant. My objection to using "unique" in this context is that doing so further erodes the original, narrow meaning of "unique" as "one of a kind". I suppose that makes me a prescriptivist and I'm okay with that.


Perhaps the concept of "uniqueness" itself is dying, rather than language being watered down.

"Everyone is unique." with the watered down version of the word "unique" just means "Everyone is distinct."

Perhaps people are beginning to collectively believe that nothing is irreproducible.


“Distinct” would do, I suppose, as surrender to the language prescriptivists.


"70 Ways to Encode <". It's concise and loses no meaning here.




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