Mentioning “American Exceptionalism” in the wrong crowd could yield everything from “the vapors” to outright hostility. These stem from both a misunderstanding of the word “exceptional” and a lack of U.S. historical knowledge. Let me address both. Many folks think “exceptional” means “better than.” Not so. The first meaning in the 2016 edition of the American Heritage Dictionary is “uncommon,” synonyms for which include “rare” and “singular.”