The Universe of Disco


Mon, 11 Apr 2022

At last, an internet commenter I can agree with

Browsing around Math StackExchange today, I encountered this question, ‘Unique’ doesn't have a unique meaning, which pointed out that the phrase “Every boy has a unique shirt” is at least confusing. (Do all the boys share a single shirt?)

“Aha,” I said. “I know what's wrong there: it should be ‘every boy has a distinct shirt’.” I scrolled down to see if I should write that as an answer. But I noticed that the question had been posted in 2012, and guessed that probably someone had already said what I was going to say. Indeed, when I looked at the comments, I saw that the third one said:

If I meant that no shirt belongs to two boys, I would say "every boy has a distinct shirt".

Okay, that saves me the trouble of replying at least. I went to click the upvote button on the comment, but there was no button,

because

the comment had been posted, in August of 2012, by me.


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