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

Thu May 14 16:11:31 UTC 2026

Excellent discussion thread. Ben Zimmer mentioned that a complaint
about the use of decimate appeared in 1868.
Here is a prescriptivist complaint about the use of "decimated" in
"The Spectator" in 1855.

Date: March 10, 1855
Periodical: The Spectator
Article: Notes and Queries
Quote Page 266

https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Spectator/wc8hAQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=tenthing

[Begin excerpt]
A correspondent of a contemporary regards it as proved that our forces
in the East have been "decimated." If he could establish the
arithmetic of his statement, it would be excellent news. The rapid use
of words by a mixed class of writers is begetting a strange laxity in
our vocabulary, particularly in those words of foreign or classic
conformation which are supposed to be the raw material of "fine
writing." Instead of saying that a third or half of the forces has
been destroyed by disease, a writer of the modern fashion thinks it
more forcible to say that they have been "decimated." We should have
supposed that only "country gentlemen" on the press could have
overlooked the meaning of the word, and its Roman origin in the
practice of picking out every tenth soldier to be punished as a proxy
for any mutinous legion, so decimating or "tenthing" the force. Would
we had only lost a tenth of our army in the Crimea!
[End excerpt]

This complaint was noticed by a correspondent who griped about the
"absurd misuse" of decimate in the following issue of "The Spectator".

Date: March 17, 1855
Periodical: The Spectator
Letter Title: Fine Writing
Letter Date: March 15, 1855
Letter From: Presbyter Hibernicus

https://books.google.com/books?id=qBQ-AQAAIAAJ&q=decimate#v=snippet&

[Begin excerpt]
Sir--You have done good service to literature by protesting against
the ambition of "fine writing" which has seized some writers in the
present day, an instance of which you have noticed in the absurd
misuse of the word "decimate."
[End excerpt]

Garson

On Wed, May 13, 2026 at 1:26 PM Ben Zimmer
<00001aae0710f4b7-dmarc-request at listserv.uga.edu> wrote:
>
> I wrote about "decimate" for OUPblog back in 2008:
> https://blog.oup.com/2008/01/decimate/
>
> Quoting myself:
>
> ---
> Richard Grant White, one of the most popular commentators on language in
> the nineteenth century, was griping about it as far back as 1868, in an
> article in _The Galaxy_ entitled "Words and Their Uses," as well as a
> widely read book of the same name published two years later. [...] White's
> observations on _decimate_ grew out of the writing of Civil War
> correspondents, as in: "The troops, although fighting bravely, were
> terribly decimated, and gave way." Because this sense does not accord with
> the "one-tenth" etymology, Grant argued that "to use _decimation_ as a
> general phrase for great slaughter is simply ridiculous." Following White’s
> cue, Edward A. Freeman wrote in the 1881 _Princeton Review_ that "the word
> is dragged in without any thought of its real meaning, without so much as
> any thought of the number ten."
>
> Links:
> White 1868: https://books.google.com/books?id=xi8ZAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA236
> White 1870:
> https://archive.org/details/wordstheirusespa00whi/page/104/mode/2up
> Freeman 1881: https://books.google.com/books?id=9rARAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA263
>
> --bgz
>
> 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
> >
> > 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
> >
> >
>
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