More on "decimate"

[Baker, John]

        There are plenty of examples that could be cited, which does not
by itself make this usage non-stupid.  Would you feel differently if the
cathedrals were only partially (one-tenth?) destroyed?


John Baker


-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
Of Jonathan Lighter
Sent: Tuesday, February 12, 2008 12:37 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: More on "decimate"

So the latest is, "to destroy; reduce to rubble":

  2006 Brad Prager in Wilfried Wilms & William Rasch, eds. _Bombs Away!_
(Amsterdam: Rodopi) 25: The destruction of Germany caused by the Air War
has been conventionally represented through images of decimated
cathedrals and crucifixes skewed in all directions.

  This usage must be stopped because a voice in my brain tells me I've
never encountered it before plus it sounds stupid.  Or did I see an
example here earlier?

  If so, it still sounds stupid. Brad Prager is Associate Professor of
German at the University of Missouri, Columbia.

  JL



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