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Can We Please Stop Calling Everything Unprecedented?
Nothing the media claims to be unprecedented is unprecedented
The media’s new favorite word is unprecedented. According to the headlines, everything on Earth is currently new and has never happened before. These kinds of linguistic trends are not new, but this one is particularly infuriating because they continue to use the word improperly. Very few things are unprecedented. In fact, most things have happened before and will happen again.
Even more annoyingly, the use of unprecedented is clearly a way to garner clicks in a cheap clickbait strategy being employed by even the most respected news outlets. The use of the word unprecedented exposes this current crop of journalists as lazy and chasing clicks.
Most of these articles include the word unprecedented in the title (are you sick of hearing that word yet?) and then quickly include phrases like “the worst in decades” or “the first time in a hundred years.” If something happened mere decades ago, then the event in question is not unprecedented because you have just referenced a precedent event as context.
The same people who are addicted to the word unprecedented are also many of the same people who like to claim that the Earth is 4.5 billion years old. Are you telling me that this event…
