We’ve all become accustomed to statements like, “Her style is very unique,” or, “this book has a somewhat unique perspective…” The usage just rubs me the wrong way. The word unique is meant to mean “one of a kind”; how could a thing be very one of a kind?

The word falls into a category of absolutes, similar to “complete”, “equal”, and “perfect”, and isn’t meant to be modified. Each of these words closes out all variablity by definition. There are no degrees of perfect, no approximation in equal, and no real comparison between complete and “nearly complete”. And something that is merely uncommon is not of the same type as something that is actually unique. There are important qualitative differences between these absolutes and their approximations.

What you mean when you say “kind of unique” is actually “peculiar”, “unusual”, or even “original”. But a thing is either unique or it isn’t, much like a light switch is on or off (there are no dimmer switches in this analogy). To be clear: if there are two of a thing, it is not unique.

If you must insist on being wrong in this usage, you’re in decent company:

For many grammarians, unique is the paradigmatic absolute term, a shibboleth that distinguishes between those who understand that such a term cannot be modified by an adverb of degree or a comparative adverb and those who do not. These grammarians would say that a thing is either unique or not unique and that it is therefore incorrect to say that something is very unique or more unique than something else. Most of the Usage Panel supports this traditional view. Eighty percent disapprove of the sentence Her designs are quite unique in today’s fashions. But as the language of advertising in particular attests, unique is widely used as a synonym for “worthy of being considered in a class by itself, extraordinary,” and if so construed it may arguably be modified. In fact, unique appears as a modified adjective in the work of many reputable writers. A travel writer states that “Chicago is no less unique an American city than New York or San Francisco,” for example, and the critic Fredric Jameson writes “The great modern writers have all been defined by the invention or production of rather unique styles.” Although these examples of the qualification of unique are defensible, writers should be aware that such constructions are liable to incur the censure of some readers. (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/unique)

But now that you know let’s try something peculiar: let “unique” stand on its own, and make use of some of our other options when appropriate.