Another Word Bites The Dust

Unique used to be a great word. (A unique one?) It used to pretty much only mean one-of-a-kind, no qualifiers allowed. Now it more commonly means special or unusual. How dreary.

I ran across a usage today that really drove this home. Here's the logline for tonight's episode of House: "House tries to save a young boy who has the same unique symptoms as an eldery patient who died from the illness."

Got that--two patient share unique symptoms. Who writes this stuff, anyway?