100%

SIX PERHEX SHIT CHECK ME OUT

OTOH I don't love it and in fact seethe inside when people continue to use 'decimate' to mean 'totally wipe out'.

Is it supposed to be killing 1/10 or 9/10 coz I've heard it both ways.

It is dividing the mass of men to be punished into groups of 10, and within each group of 10 they draw lots and the one loser gets killed. So yeah killing 1 in 10. I am surprised to learn this was actually a disciplinary measure used on one's OWN forces, I always thought it was something you did to the able bodied males of your opponent once you had captured their city etc!

There is a simpler method used by some Soviet commander in WWII apparently:

In his book Stalingrad, Antony Beevor recounts how, during the Second World War, a Soviet Corps commander of a division practiced decimation on retreating soldiers by walking down the line of soldiers at attention, and shooting every tenth soldier in the face until his TT-33 pistol ran out of ammunition.

this makes me imagine frantic shuffling going on and a lot of "after you, my friend" "no I insist" before the lineup.

Jon Lewis, I am a little wiser and a little more appalled thanks to you. And I'll probably never misuse "decimated" again, so good job.

Srsly, I have been misusing that word for years. Little did I know that the only correct usage is so specific that I may as well forget the word ever existed.

Right? If the Flyers decimate the Blackhawks, there are going to be much larger problems for the team than losing the Stanley Cup.

100% is my favorite chromeo song

I'll fess up to misusing it but I'm going to continue misusing it on the grounds that you could kill 1/10th of the each person's body, like the head part.
Also gonna keep misusing "begging the question" because there's no equivalent that sounds better.

Raising the question.

"Raising the question" isn't cool enough for you?

xp Yeah.

Just avoiding the one grammar aspie who is going to pipe up and point out that you mean "raising the question" is worth modifying your behavior, IMHO.

"Grammar aspie" was kind of a mean thing to say. I'm sorry.

I think people get hung up on the difference between "begging the question" and "I beg to differ". Just a theory.

"raising" doesn't have the tugging david copperfield feel of "begging"

w/ 'decimate' it's stupid to claim that people are 'misusing' it - there's a modern, alternate use of the word (which is much more useful than the historical definition) and you can find it among the definitions in any dictionary.

xp "Please sir, may I have some more reasoning?"

Well sure ppl aren't exactly MISUSING it but I really hate the idea that they don't know what a cool term it is (was?)

okay I can agree w/ that

I can think of ten words that people will say the same of in 200 years. Some in just 50.

Yeah, I think the meaning of the word "decimate" has expanded over time, as definitions tend to do. freedictionary.com:

dec·i·mate
1. To destroy or kill a large part of (a group).
2. Usage Problem
a. To inflict great destruction or damage on: The fawns decimated my rose bushes.
b. To reduce markedly in amount: a profligate heir who decimated his trust fund.
3. To select by lot and kill one in every ten of.

fuckin trust funders

Actually the "usage note" following that definition is kinda fascinating:

Usage Note: Decimate originally referred to the killing of every tenth person, a punishment used in the Roman army for mutinous legions. Today this meaning is commonly extended to include the killing of any large proportion of a group. Sixty-six percent of the Usage Panel accepts this extension in the sentence The Jewish population of Germany was decimated by the war, even though it is common knowledge that the number of Jews killed was much greater than a tenth of the original population. However, when the meaning is further extended to include large-scale destruction other than killing, as in The supply of fresh produce was decimated by the nuclear accident at Chernobyl, only 26 percent of the Panel accepts the usage.

How do I get to be on the "usage panel"????

You have to be a combination of jaymc, la lechera, and Superman.

that would do it, surely

I am neither Jewish nor fresh produce, so I doubt I would have a place on the panel.

Inside information: the anti-fresh-produce lobby totally rigged that election.

See these 'usage panels' are exactly the kind of thing Sarah Palin was trying to warn us about!