misuse of "decimated"

[OC Richard]

It's one of those odd little language things that bothers me.

"Decimated" is from Latin and means to be reduced by one-tenth. It's one of those absolute words that doesn't take modification by degrees. Just as you can't be "somewhat pregnant" or "partially nude" you can't be "totally decimated". You're either pregnant, nude, or decimated, or you're not.

I'm used to hearing "completely decimated" to mean "completely destroyed" but just now I heard a professional announcer use the word in yet another wrong way, using "utterly decimated" to mean "utterly discouraged".

Then there's the mixed metaphors. I heard "get the monkey off my shoulder" the other day. A friend of my wife, when she couldn't finish her meal, said "I guess my eyes were bigger than my head".

[Tarheel]

The wife, her closest friends and I keep a journal of words that we hear that escape the heads of "misusers." The current word of the day is simular (instead of similar). One is a comparative adjective and one is a substation adjective.
Supposably (as an alternative to supposedly) surprised us in its correctness. Don't forget to remind me of the time we overheard a woman describing three children as triplicates.

[Profane James]

The wife, her closest friends and I keep a journal of words that we hear that escape the heads of "misusers." The current word of the day is simular (instead of similar). One is a comparative adjective and one is a substation adjective.
Supposably (as an alternative to supposedly) surprised us in its correctness. Don't forget to remind me of the time we overheard a woman describing three children as triplicates.

The south is a gold mine....

[Kiltedjohn]

And then there are the weather forecasters who refer to "dry interludes", meaning "intervals". (Or am I being over-fussy?)

[Chip]

"literally"

bugs the heck out of me. As in "It's literally raining cats and dogs outside." Unless the apocalypse is just around the corner, no, it is not "literally" raining cats and dogs.

[Kiltedjohn]

"literally"

bugs the heck out of me. As in "It's literally raining cats and dogs outside." Unless the apocalypse is just around the corner, no, it is not "literally" raining cats and dogs.

I did once hear a comedian say that it WAS raining cats and dogs, because "there were poodles all over the street."

[duke_19_62]

"literally"

bugs the heck out of me. As in "It's literally raining cats and dogs outside." Unless the apocalypse is just around the corner, no, it is not "literally" raining cats and dogs.

According to www.merriam-webster.com:
"Definition of literally

1 : in a literal sense or manner :actually<took the remark literally><was literally insane>

• 2: in effect : virtually <will literally turn the world upside down to combat cruelty or injustice — Norman Cousins>"
  
  
  So I guess it's like my science teacher said, if the facts don't fit the theory, the facts must be dispensed with.

[ForresterModern]

Decimated originated from the latin for use way back in the Roman legions, who absorbed into their ranks the crestfallen soldiers of their conquered regions. Understandably this often made for some unruly, less than optimally loyal soldiers in the ranks. As punishment for times of general disobedience (refusing to attack when ordered to, for instance) they would be lined up and "decimated"--counted off by ten and then every tenth man would be punished by their Roman leaders, and if that punishment was harsh, such as death, their ranks would be "decimated" (diminished by one tenth or 10%) by their own disciplinary measures. Hence the origin of the use of the word relating to military and battle terminology was actually non-battle related, rather self inflicted on a grand scale.

The term (a 10% reduction) has been exaggerated through the centuries, mostly in the last one or two, to come to mean something entirely different---that of near total annihilation or obliteration---probably because those using the term thought it sounded more profound than those other terms, and because they may not have been able to spell those more appropriate terms as well. Annihilation is a far more ominous degree and extent of loss, and near total would be devastating. Obliteration is, well, essentially complete destruction, the ultimate total loss. Either would be far worse in battle than simply being "decimated" (reduced by 10%), which by more modern warfare standards (at least up until the year 2000 or so) would not be seen as necessarily an exceptional loss, rather more expected and acceptable "casualties of war" in the era of hand to hand or close quarters warfare (where opponents could "see the whites of their eyes" before engaging, not the unmanned drone strike, massive air armaments delivered from 10,000 feet, cruise missile, or even artillery dominated more distant types of engagements seen in latter half of the last century).

[Tarheel]

Tripleblessed, we don't bury all the survivors of plane crashes in western Mississippi. Some folks require autopsies to determine the manner of death.
I will bring my authoritative text to the table when confronting "lack-a-what" (lackadaisical) language abusers. Here is the proof there is such a book.

[OC Richard]

The current word of the day is simular (instead of similar).

One of my son's teachers, a highly educated woman (I think she had a Doctorate in Education) would say that. I think it's by false analogy with "simulate".

Here we have a city called Westminster. Nearly everybody here, including people born and raised there, call it Westminister. It's like "Bridegroom" where a word that sounds unfamiliar and strange, used in a compound, has a familiar word substituted for it. No-one here, evidently, has ever heard the word "minster".

On the grammar side of things, of course we Americans say "gotten" in "have gotten" but I also hear "have boughten" fairly often and "have satten" a few times. There's a saying in linguistics "Native Speakers don't make mistakes" but things like that make one wonder.