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Pedantic, perhaps. Wrong? Definitely not. Look it up. "Decimation" was a term invented by the Romans, and was a method of punishing Army units who failed in
by Arizhel 10y ago
Pedantic, perhaps. Wrong? Definitely not. Look it up. "Decimation" was a term invented by the Romans, and was a method of punishing Army units who failed in battle. All the men would line up, and every 10th man would be executed. That's why it's called "decimation": "deci" is Latin for 10.
Modern uses of the word are simply wrong and nonsensical if you understand that "deci" means 10, which should be obvious to any competent English speaker who knows of the word "decimal" and understands our numbering system.
- danharaj 10y agoLinguistic prescriptivism is pedantic and wrong.
- bbctol 10y agoDid you look it up before saying "look it up"?
- Arizhel 10y agoNo, but Wikipedia backs me up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimation_%28Roman_army%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimation_%28Roman_army%29 The only other entries in the disambiguation page are about signal processing and a comic book.
- AshleyGrant 10y agoThe meaning of words changes over time. The meaning of decimate has changed from its original meaning. Sorry you can't handle that fact. Oh, and that is not to mention that the original meaning of "decimate" was "tithe," not "kill on in ten soldiers."
- Arizhel 10y agoWrong. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimation_%28Roman_army%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimation_%28Roman_army%29: "The word decimation is derived from Latin meaning "removal of a tenth"."
- tokenizer 10y ago> Sorry you can't handle that fact. I like how buddy proves to you he's right, and you have the gall to act like you're right. Besides, this argument is over pedantics. My original comment stands. China is weak compared to US. No war necessary, restructuring in favour of US WILL TAKE PLACE.