! DECIMATE

[mik3cap]

Okay people. Please help me with this one. Even PBS's NOVA is wrong on it, and it's worrying me.

Decimate == REDUCE by ONE TENTH. To decimate something is to destroy ten percent of it.

People CONSTANTLY misuse this word. They should be using the word "devastate" instead.

DEVASTATE, not decimate.

You may now return to your previously scheduled program.

Comments

[bronzite.livejournal.com]

Used to. Still does. Also has another meaning to mean "significantly reduce." Merriam-Webster agrees.

English may be a technical language, but its still a language in motion, and meanings migrate over time.

[treyvana.livejournal.com]

huh. You know, that never even occurred to me.

I shall correct it in my brain and try to use it only in appropriate situations.

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huh. You know, that never even occurred to me.

I shall correct it in my brain and try to use it only in appropriate situations.

<insert 'the more you know' star here>

:)

[kaetaur13.livejournal.com]

One great thing about the English language is that once enough people use a word incorrectly long enough they become correct.

[rovanda.livejournal.com]

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=decimate
dec-i-mate   [des-uh-meyt] –verb (used with object), -mat⋅ed, -mat⋅ing.
1. to destroy a great number or proportion of: The population was decimated by a plague.
2. to select by lot and kill every tenth person of.
3. Obsolete. to take a tenth of or from.
-----
Origin:
1590–1600; < L decimātus, ptp. of decimāre to punish every tenth man chosen by lot, v. deriv. of decimus tenth, deriv. of decem ten; see ate1

Usage note:
The earliest English sense of decimate is “to select by lot and execute every tenth soldier of (a unit).” The extended sense “destroy a great number or proportion of” developed in the 19th century: Cholera decimated the urban population. Because the etymological sense of one-tenth remains to some extent, decimate is not ordinarily used with exact fractions or percentages: Drought has destroyed (not decimated) nearly 80 percent of the cattle.

It's always interesting to look further into things I never particularly thought about. Depending on how severely you disagree with usage determining definition, you could probably argue that "decimate" should only be used in the historical context of disciplining Roman troops...

You must love the French :) They have the Académie Française to regulate the French language, dictating what is considered acceptable grammar and vocabulary.

[kitteridge.livejournal.com]

I am woefully ignorant in these areas but as I understand it there's a power struggle over those who seek to expand the English language, and those who want to keep things pretty much where they are. M-W adheres to the "if it's used incorrectly long enough, may as well consider it valid" territory, and I believe a group like Oxford is not.

But I will promise to promote your "decimate" usage if you will help me get people to stop using "impact" as a verb (i.e. "people were impacted by the study").

[mighty-1.livejournal.com]

They should make a Transformer named "Decimator" that comes apart into 10 smaller robots.

[gower.livejournal.com]

>Inexactness of language is inexactness of thought.

After some amount of years after a word changes you have to give up on that, though, like "nice" no longer meaning "fastidious" or "buxom" no longer meaning "obedient."

"I want you kids to be nice and buxom!"

[gower.livejournal.com]

Think of buxsome as bow-some (willing to bow to). Like all of the best words, it's from old english.

Nice has obscure origins, probably in old French. It also means extravagent, lecherous, or foolish. But as usually glossed in the English Renaissance, it's "being overly attentive to detail." I don't know if anyone knows a clear origin for the word. At least my OED doesn't.