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

Wed May 13 16:33:18 UTC 2026

Maybe someone thought it meant to destroy ten times, tenfold, way-destroyed.

On Wed, May 13, 2026 at 12:27 PM Dan Goncharoff <
00001bc983129c8b-dmarc-request at listserv.uga.edu> wrote:

> Trying to understand the "false" or "parlor" etymology. Did the word NOT
> come from the Latin for "to reduce by a tenth"??
>
> DanG
>
> On Wed, May 13, 2026, 11:48 AM Jonathan Lighter <
> 00001aad181a2549-dmarc-request at listserv.uga.edu> wrote:
>
> > Now that you mention it, I was also warned against "dilapidated" in the
> > seventh grade. Thanks for reminding me.
> >
> > BTW, Fowler (1922) accepts the usual sense as long as it applies to
> > something that can be "reckoned by number": "The population was decimated
> > by plague."
> >
> > But he frowns on its application to other things.
> >
> > The truly radical anti-"decimate" taboo seems to insist that it can
> "only"
> > mean "reduce by ten per cent (or so)."
> >
> > Except in writings about the Roman army, this sense is virtually never
> used
> > by anybody.
> >
> > I believe the Roman practice it describes was uncommon in the first
> place,
> > and Roman writers rarely mention it.
> >
> > JL
> >
> > On Wed, May 13, 2026 at 11:36 AM Gordon, Matthew <gordonmj at missouri.edu>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > 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
> > >
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> > >
> > > 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."
> > >
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