FAQ

Unique sentences are sentences that have never been said before in the history of mankind. Sometimes they just happen to pop up in conversation. This is a site to collect them for posterity.

“Hold the newsreader’s nose squarely, waiter, or friendly milk will countermand my trousers.”

I think my interest in unique sentences might have been sparked by this scene from A Bit of Fry and Laurie, which I probably saw as a 16-year-old, in 1989. I think the illustrious Mr. Fry sums things up far better than I could:

At Unique Sentence, we work on the principle that all of our sentences are unique. It's just that some are more unique than others.

You should judge a sentence on how unique you think it is across all of human history. The best unique sentences have never, ever been said before, and are unlikely to be said again.

You might knock points off if a sentence sounds contrived, or if it's unique in a mundane way. “Tristan and Eloise are going to Harpenden to see Tarquin on Thurdsay 1st May” is probably unique, but not for terribly interesting reasons.

All else being equal, shorter sentences are better than longer sentences.

Advanced raters may try to take comedy value into consideration.

We will never reveal your email address to any third parties. No other users can view it. Any emails we send you will be related to this site only, and will never include third-party advertising.

Currently, we only send emails to welcome people to the site, notify them that submitted sentences have been published, or to remind people of lost passwords. If we start to do more in the future it'll be announced in advance by a one-off "opt-in" email.

Please see the Contact page.