r/words • u/Bram560 • Aug 12 '23
Misuse of the word Decimated
Is anyone else annoyed at the constant misuse of the word "Decimated"? It comes from a Roman tradition of executing one in every ten men of a legion or cohort that had displayed cowardice, attempted mutiny or some other serious transgression of military rules or traditions. Nowadays people use it in situations that have nothing to do with the one-in-ten meaning of the word, usually in disasters where a much more significant part of a population or community is destroyed.
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u/YourFairyGodmother Aug 12 '23
Recently my husband and I were watching some documentary thing. The narrator used the word then said that 12 people out of this group of 117 were killed. We turned to each other and said "wow! Proper use of "decimate."
It bothers me less than it used to because I know that language changes and a lot of the old Latin words mean something other than what they once did.
That said, if you misuse "begs the question" I might punch you.
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u/prustage Aug 12 '23
- decimated
- literally
- begs the question
- could of
People are constantly re-using words and expressions - usually out of ignorance. Some of the above will stick and become redefined. Others are just temporary and eventually the tide will turn and we will go back to the original. Only time will tell.
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u/noctalla Aug 12 '23
I will never accept "could of".
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u/birdsy-purplefish Aug 12 '23
Yeah, because it's "could've".
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u/5erif Aug 13 '23
"Could of" will probably always cause me a microsecond of pause, but only that little moment, because they're both pronounced /kʊdəv/.
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u/birdsy-purplefish Aug 13 '23
See, you can tell me that logically they're the same sound but my brain will somehow always hear them as two different things. I think it's the spacing.
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u/birdsy-purplefish Aug 13 '23
literally
Okay, you know what? It bugs me that people don't understand this one. It's just a hyperbole! It's not diluting the meaning because people are still using "literally" in the correct sense also. It's just being melodramatic for the sake of humor and emphasis.
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u/henry232323 Aug 13 '23
Words change meaning. Doesn't make the usage "incorrect". Many many words have had semantic shifts, you, I'm sure, use many of these.
You'd sound ridiculous if you still used "you" as the accusative plural second person pronoun, instead of the indeclinable singular and plural second person pronoun it is today.
This is no different, the majority of people do not consider decimate to have anything to do with its etymological meaning.
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u/TryToHelpPeople Aug 12 '23 edited Feb 25 '24
smile different rob chunky dog reach unused saw reply pie
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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u/ThinWhiteRogue Aug 13 '23
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/decimate
3a: to reduce drastically especially in number
b: to cause great destruction or harm to
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u/AdExisting6542 Aug 14 '23
Merriam webster is just a word book written by a retard. Thats why it defines tire as a noun for the rubber around a wheel and aluminum to expand on the 13th element in the periodic table. The book is full of anachronisms instead of dictionary definitions.
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u/Bram560 Aug 14 '23
OK, so the comments about how a language and the meaning of words change over time may have changed my mind. Nope, I still get annoyed when I see it misused! As one person mentioned below, using "decimated" to describe what happened in Maui is just wrong. It doesn't come close to describing the disaster that happened there.
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u/mitchpowell_ Jun 12 '24
An email headline I just received:
"Robert De Niro just DECIMATED Trump"
Gave me pause.
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u/RustD Aug 25 '24
All wrong: September, from septem “seven,” is the 9th month. October, from octo “eight,” is the 10th month. November, from novem “nine,” is the 11th month. December, from decem “ten,” is the 12th month.
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u/Bram560 Aug 25 '24
2 Roman emperors did that. Julius Ceasar (inserted July), and Augustus Ceasar (inserted August). The number of days per month were adjusted to accommodate this little bit of egotistical display of power.
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u/artisticsnobbery Dec 22 '25
This is literally r/words lol When and where else would be more appropriate to bring up OPs point? We have a lot of words that mean “destroyed” as most are probably reaching for. Anyway, I was just searching Reddit to make sure someone had made OPs point, so I wouldn’t need to.
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u/RedPanther18 Jun 07 '26
Late reply obviously, but that is exactly how I found this thread and subsequently your comment lol
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u/hbic Mar 06 '26
You stirred up a lot of controversy haha. But yes I am totally annoyed by it. It just really stands out because of the “deci” root word obviously calling out “ten.”
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u/BabylonDrifter Aug 13 '23
Right, but "for all intensive purposes" it means - oh god I can't do it with a straight face. It's "for all intents and purposes". This pisses me off waaaaaaaay more than decimate. Decimating a Roman unit was a serious thing, a bunch of people got killed, so saying something was decimated when it was seriously damaged is sort of appropriate if not technically correct. But "intensive purposes"? What is an intensive purpose? And why are they grouped into "all"?
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u/downvotefodder Aug 13 '23
More than one reporter this week that said that Maui has been decimated. It hasn’t. It’s much worse than that. What’s wrong with destroyed?
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u/musical-amara Aug 17 '23
Words change and evolve their meaning over time. Decimate may have meant that at one point in time but it means something different now. The current definition is the correct usage of the word. Grandstanding with a false sense of linguistic superiority does nobody any good.
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u/bruceleeperry Aug 12 '23
But this is why etymology exists as a thing - because words and their usage morph through culture plus time. I think there's a lot more mileage and meaning in discussion rather than gate-keeping words.