You Don’t Say

A Labor Day weekend trip to San Diego with my friend Peter found us wandering the confusing ramps and passageways of the multi-level Horton Plaza in the Gaslamp Quarter of downtown. We were in search of a slim-fit white dress shirt for Peter. Although the shopping expedition was unsuccessful, the plaza turned out to be an interesting place to visit for another reason.

Horton Plaza is one of the city’s top attractions. In fact, back in the mid-1980s, when it was built, Horton Plaza was a risky departure from conventional shopping center architecture. Its bright colors, ramps, angled walls and flowing spaces introduced a new architectural vernacular to commercial development. The success of Horton Plaza was a catalyst for further development in the rundown Gaslamp Quarter of downtown San Diego.

So I guess Horton Plaza has a right to boast. And so it does, with a giant wall-size banner proclaiming itself as “San Diego’s Most Unique Shopping Experience.” My quibble isn’t with Horton Plaza’s asserting its uniqueness, given its history (although for my money, if you’ve seen one Westfield shopping center, you’ve seen them all).

But I do challenge the “most unique” collocation. The word unique means one of a kind, without equal. There are no degrees of uniqueness. The word unique stands alone, without modifiers. The banner should proclaim “San Diego’s Unique Shopping Experience.” Granted, that claim seems to fall a bit flat. The ad copywriter probably thought the same thing and inserted the word most in an effort to strengthen the claim. In the world of advertising copywriting, in which everything purportedly is unique, the word has lost its meaning.

Hint to copywriter: It was a lame claim to begin with. Come up with something more original next time.

The other day I was testing the ripeness of the Haas avocados in a Ralph’s supermarket in Studio City. I was gently squeezing one of the plump, pebbly-skinned fruits, when I heard a male voice ask the grocery clerk, “Where’s your sour cream at?”

The avocado I was squeezing wasn’t ripe, but the grammatical moment sure was.

When did it become commonplace to marry where with at? By definition where means at what place. Tacking on the preposition at to a where question is unnecessary. ”Where is your sour cream? would have been sufficient. (I woud also replace the possessive adjective your with the simple article the, but that’s another posting.)

Am I the only person who knows this? I can’t tell you how many cell phone conversations I have overheard that have included the question, “So, where are you at?” I’ve heard teachers use this collocation when discussing the merits of a particular assessment tool as ”a way of helping us find out where the students are at.”

If you ask me where I’m at, my answer is, “At my wit’s end.”