Decimate 9-1-03

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" colspan=2 height=90 BGCOLOR="#006699" TEXT="#080000" background="042d05a3.jpg"> <div> <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" ><B>Big Ring Media Team, Inc.</B></FONT><B>    </B><B> |     </B><A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Big Ring Media Team, Inc."><B>home</B></A></div> <div> </div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" width=210 BGCOLOR="#FFCC66" TEXT="#080000" background="043d2123.jpg"> <div> Click on this link to return to <A HREF="id40.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Word Watch by Subject">Word Watch by Subject</A>.</div> <div> Click on this link to go to <A HREF="id39.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Word Watch by Date">Word Watch by Date</A>.</div> </td> <td valign="top" height=390 width="100%" BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <I>Decimate 9-1-03</I></div> <div> “Decimate” in its purest sense means to reduce by one-tenth (as might be suspected from the “deci-” prefix). The roots go back to when the Romans would kill one in ten men, chosen by lot, of a rebellious city or mutinous army.</div> <div> Although the use of “decimate” to indicate a loss larger than ten percent has been around for several hundred years, there are still those who bristle at such use and consider it careless. The pinnacle of such abuse is to use the term with a number, as in “The drought decimated the wheat crop by 40 percent.”</div> <div> Since “decimate” can be a minefield, and since our luscious English language gives us so many other verbs from which to choose (destroy, obliterate, cull, etc.), the careful writer will avoid using “decimate” unless it does indeed indicate a loss of ten percent.</div> </td> </tr></table></body>