Decimated totally gets me going. Mostly because a) it's right there in the word and b) now I'm short a word. I want a word.
leggings should be worn with flats!
This is news to me. When did that get decided?
That's disturbing. You're emotionally scarred and will end up badly.
Anya ,'Bring On The Night'
Natter 69: Practically names itself.
Off-topic discussion. Wanna talk about corsets, duct tape, or physics? This is the place. Detailed discussion of any current-season TV must be whitefonted.
§ ita § - Feb 10, 2012 4:05:02 pm PST #21381 of 30001
Well not canonically, no, but this is transformative fiction.
msbelle - Feb 10, 2012 4:07:16 pm PST #21382 of 30001
I remember the crazy days. 500 posts an hour. Nubmer! Natgbsb
decimate is like anniversary.
bon bon - Feb 10, 2012 4:08:52 pm PST #21383 of 30001
It's five thousand for kissing, ten thousand for snuggling... End of list.
I don't use decimate because devastate is always better and of course, it marks me as foolish not to know the historical meaning. But that also means decimate has pretty much been removed from the language. It's too specific and too obscure. Now I'm short a word.
sarameg - Feb 10, 2012 4:09:16 pm PST #21384 of 30001
A little part of me dies whenever I hear NPR use 'decimate' incorrectly.
Sore tonight.
I've got so much travel to schedule, it is insane. It's not that I don't like travel. It's that I don't like the anticipation of the disruption to my routine. And really, flying 8+ hours for one day for a wedding just makes my head hurt.
Sophia Brooks - Feb 10, 2012 4:09:47 pm PST #21385 of 30001
Cats to become a rabbit should gather immediately now here
I don't get how you would use the word decimate as "kills 1/10th of"-- I can't think of any way that that would be measurable. Unless you were in an army, counted off by 10s and then killed.
Dana - Feb 10, 2012 4:13:20 pm PST #21386 of 30001
I'm terrifically busy with my ennui.
Unless you were in an army, counted off by 10s and then killed.
Which is pretty much the origin of the word, except I think it was the population, yeah? Conquering Romans were not nice people.
Matt the Bruins fan - Feb 10, 2012 4:13:25 pm PST #21387 of 30001
"I remember when they eventually introduced that drug kingpin who murdered people and smuggled drugs inside snakes and I was like 'Finally. A normal person.'” —RahvinDragand
It originates with the Roman practice of punishing a unit by dividing it into groups of 10 and executing one person from each.
NoiseDesign - Feb 10, 2012 4:14:47 pm PST #21388 of 30001
Our wings are not tired
Really? We should be using it in the sense of the Roman practice? By the time the bubonic plague hit Europe it was being used in the sense of "destroy a large portion of the population."
Sophia Brooks - Feb 10, 2012 4:14:53 pm PST #21389 of 30001
Cats to become a rabbit should gather immediately now here
Oh- OK. That is really too specific to use, so I can totally understand how it means "devastated".
-t - Feb 10, 2012 4:16:39 pm PST #21390 of 30001
I am a woman of various inclinations and only some of the time are they to burn everything down in frustration
You can still use decimate to mean 1/10th killed. Lots of words have more than one and even contradictory meanings. I kind of wanted someone to bring that up in the "illin" crossword puzzle controversy (aside: I am about a month behind in my NYTimes crosswords and just got to that puzzle recently. That was the first answer I got. Felt like cheating).
To be clear, I don't cringe when I hear "begs the question" because it's wrong. It's more a reminder that my grasp of logical fallacies is shaky, these days, and I find that disturbing.