[Ads-l] to decimate: a "recent" bugaboo

[Gordon, Matthew]

Richard Bailey mentions the case of ‘decimate’ among other examples of “parlor etymology” in his book on 19th century English though he gives no examples of complaints about it. He also mentions ‘dilapidated’ (which, parlor etymologists argue, should be applied only to stone structures), and he provides an extended account of a courtroom cross-examination in which the witness, a doctor, is humiliated when the lawyer points out the absurdity of his having diagnosed a male patient with hysteria (b/c of its Greek root meaning “womb”).

I wonder if the survival of the etymological fallacy with regard to ‘decimate’ is due to the enduring obsession (among some people) with the Roman empire.

Matt


From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Jonathan Lighter <00001aad181a2549-dmarc-request at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Date: Wednesday, May 13, 2026 at 9:23 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Subject: to decimate: a "recent" bugaboo

WARNING: This message has originated from an External Source. This may be a phishing expedition that can result in unauthorized access to our IT System. Please use proper judgment and caution when opening attachments, clicking links, or responding to this email.

One of the favorite words of the President of the United States is
"decimate," meaning, as MW has it, "to reduce drastically especially in
number" and "to cause great destruction or harm to."  He uses it
emphatically each time he mentions Iranian losses of materiel or capacity.

Just this morning a distinguished MSNOW commentator observed somewhat
condescendingly that, of course, the President is misusing the word,
because what it "really means" is to reduce by only  one tenth. (I was
taught this very emphatically in the seventh grade, btw.)

Not news to members of this list. However, I was curious as to when it
became fashionable not just to criticize but to smirk with superiority at
this usage of "decimate," which OED documents "in standard English" from at
least 1660.

Surely this was a public gripe of eighteenth-century grammarians and
Latinists.

But apparently not. I may be missing something, but searches for
"decimate" + "Latin" + "one tenth" in Newspapers.com, InternetArchive, and
Google Books reveals no objection earlier than the 1880s.

A writer in the British _Cornhill Magazine_(1885, p. 628, Google Books)
felt it necessary to observe, under the critical rubric of "Superfine
English" that "even when one uses 'decimate' metaphorically, in the
rough sense of to punish severely, or to destroy a very large proportion,
there is surely nothing wrong or very out-of-the-way in its usage."  He is
reacting to the strong objection of  an unnamed contemporary, whom he
scores as "one of the most phenomenally bad writers of the present
generation."

Yet by 1905, London U. expected matriculants to eschew the wider usage:

1905 _Matriculation Directory_ (London Univ.) XXXIX 83 [GB]: Matriculation
Examination, 1905... _Decimate_. "The field of turnips was decimated:
scarce a root was left untouched." To _decimate_ properly means to reduce
_by_ one-tenth, and not to reduce _to_ one-tenth.

(Other words "misused" included "future," "antiquarian," and "mutual.")

It would be good to know the identity of "one of the most phenomenally bad
writers" of the mid-to-later nineteenth century" so as to enjoy some of his
wretched prose, but I haven't tried to track him down.

It's curious, at any rate, that the super-prescriptivist objection to
"decimate" remains in educated circles long after others, like the split
infinitive, have been consigned to the dust.

JL
--
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - https://nam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.americandialect.org%2F&data=05%7C02%7CGordonMJ%40MISSOURI.EDU%7C53f6f9f1bb364b8295cc08deb0fb3b3c%7Ce3fefdbef7e9401ba51a355e01b05a89%7C0%7C0%7C639142790249748564%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=8cxwqzok9BMvv7D7aGFimJ08a2QEUs5Qao%2B807BpI0c%3D&reserved=0<http://www.americandialect.org/>

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org