"By 1961, eighty-five percent of Africa's elephants had been _decimated_."

[Laurence Horn]

On May 22, 2012, at 9:04 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:

> But not even this guy would say, "I went on safari and I decimated an
> elephant."
>
> Or would he?
>
> JL

No; a hydra, maybe, but not an elephant.  _Decimate_ is closer to 'wipe out a large/significant proportion of', not a huge change from 'wipe out a tenth of', given how semantic widening typically works.

LH
>
> On Mon, May 21, 2012 at 10:31 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
>> Subject:      "By 1961, eighty-five percent of Africa's elephants had been
>>             _decimated_."
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> There's nothing to be said, really. _Decimate_ is just a big word for
>> "kill."
>>
>> --
>> -Wilson
>> -----
>> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint
>> to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
>> -Mark Twain
>>
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>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>
>
>
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
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