So appropriate, Tinman! Isn't it the truth? How many times have we seen "extremely urgent?"

The other scenario is when people send an email through Outlook with that urgent flag. Three of us were asked by this faculty member to speak at a conference. Whenever she sent us a message (often!) about the upcoming event, she would put mark it as urgent; it might say, "See you all real soon." Never mind, it was marked as urgent. The three of us would just crack up about that.

It does seem as if "urgent" has become like "unique" in that people don't realize that it's already "the most". What other words have done this? Huge? Exhausted?

I sometimes have to act as a sort of clearing-house for our organisation, forwarding complicated email queries to the appropriate expert on the subject.

Some people, like Kalleh's colleague, seem to have an unique definition of "urgent" and occasionally I'll forward the message with the flag intact (the default) but usually (if I notice) I'll remove the flag. I don't want colleagues thinking I've added the flag and am pestering them for a reply.

I don't see what's necessarily wrong with "extremely urgent". There are degrees of urgency, and something can be more urgent than another thing.

About "unique"... one of the meanings of "unique" is " unusual ", and the word has been modified for over 100 years by Brontë and Carroll among others.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: goofy,

Back when I used to work for the police we had a problem with every piece of work requested of the computer department by anybody was ALWAYS labelled "urgent". To stop this they came up with a whole set of definitions on a 1 to 5 priority system with one being highest. After that everything came in labelled "1 (urgent)".

There's no way to stop it. In their own eyes everyone's work should always take priority over everyone else's. C'est la vie.

When I worked in an organisation I stopped that kind of nonsense by asking for a deadline on all the work that came to my unit.

That stopped the "urgent" and "asap" requests and had the further benefit of making those who requested work actually think about when it was needed and, as a corollary, made them think a bit harder about their own task and time management.

It took a while for people to realise that I meant what I said and that, if a deadline had been agreed with me, it would be met by the team. That, too, helped to stop the "we need it yesterday" culture.

Bosses constantly brought printing jobs in labeled "Rush" and expected work that took x hours to be done in less time. When the jobs inevitably screwed up, and the deadline wasn't met, we were always aware of the adage, "There's never enough time to do it right, but always enough time to do it over."

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I don't see what's necessarily wrong with "extremely urgent". There are degrees of urgency, and something can be more urgent than another thing.

Really? Do you feel the same about "unique?" CW made that point above, and I agree with her that degrees of "uniqueness" and "urgent" are about the same.

[Speaking of "uniqueness." is there a word "uniquenesses?" Whenever I write it, Word indicates it's misspelled, and I haven't been able to find the plural in the dictionary.]

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Originally posted by Kalleh:

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I don't see what's necessarily wrong with "extremely urgent". There are degrees of urgency, and something can be more urgent than another thing.

Really? Do you feel the same about "unique?" CW made that point above, and I agree with her that degrees of "uniqueness" and "urgent" are about the same.

My house is on fire and I have to get out. That's urgent. But I also have to rescue my pets. That's even more urgent.

The OED has some citations for "very urgent" and I can't find any notes about this in the usage manuals I checked. I don't think it's a usage problem.

As I said, one of the meanings of "unique" is "unusual", and there are degrees of unusualness. But there are also degrees of uniqueness. As Motivated Grammar says, "that uniqueness can be graded and different things can be more or less unique is actually logically reasonable."

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That's even more urgent.

It's probably no more URGENT but it is more IMPORTANT. One of the problems that people have with time management is confusing these two descriptors.

Remembering the Spanish word único helps me to get the feeling -- the meaning -- of unique. When it's the only one there is no comparison.

I've thought about "unique" before and I believe that even when used with a meaning of "the only one" it's capable of being modified by "more".

This species is unique to the British Isles.
That species is unique to Europe.
This species is more unique than that one.

This seems perfectly acceptable to me.

Give me that old time grammar. It was good enough for Plautus (link), it's good enough for me." The great thing about language is that it is not constrained by reality, logic, or any of the other man-made straightjackets that have been created in order to confine its noodlings. But, then, I am one of those loons who love language (cf. link). I've never quite understood why people don't howl at the moon when people use obvious solecisms like nearer or lesser.

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Originally posted by jerry thomas:
Remembering the Spanish word único helps me to get the feeling -- the meaning -- of unique. When it's the only one there is no comparison.

Isn't this the etymological fallacy?

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Originally posted by Richard English:

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That's even more urgent.

It's probably no more URGENT but it is more IMPORTANT. One of the problems that people have with time management is confusing these two descriptors.

How is bad time management relevant to deciding what is and isn't good writing? All these writers who used "very urgent" presumably know what they're doing when it comes to writing, whatever their time management skills.

1779 Mirror No. 32, The remonstrances of his man of business, aided by very urgent requests from me.

Spanish

One interesting grammatical bit about Spanish is the use of the plural of uno 'one', unos, to mean some, e.g., unos libros 'some books'. Come to think of it único has plural forms, too: los únicos libros 'the only books'. Not sure how it relates to English grammar, but then I'm funny that way.

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How is bad time management relevant to deciding what is and isn't good writing?

Bad time management has nothing to do with good or bad writing. But the quality of the writing determines how well a concept is described - in this instance the concept of difference between the urgency and the importance of a task.

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It was good enough for Plautus (link),

Nice link. I do miss Jazzbeau.

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. But, then, I am one of those loons who love language (cf. link).

I don't think you're any different from the rest of us here. That's why we're here. What I find interesting is the different elements (not sure what to call them) of language that people here find annoying. It might be "moot" or "very unique" or "less grains of sand" or whatever. I do think we all have uses of words that annoy us.