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Comment by Aspos | Hacker News Reader

I feel irrational hatred towards people who think "decimated" is a synonym of "destroyed".

Honest advice: free yourself from that and live a happier life. And I don't mean it in an "ignorance is bliss" kind of way, on the contrary really. Otherwise, to be consistent, you'd need to

- demand your salary be paid in salt

- have all arenas be covered in sand

- calculate only with pebbles

- only allow xylophones made of wood

And so on. It's a tiring journey to embark on -- oops, one can only embark on ships...

I take decimate to mean reduced by 10% and annihilate to destroy utterly.

I have literally (and I mean literally as in literally, not just for emphasis) never heard anyone in common usage use decimate to mean "reduce by 10%".

Meanings change over time, and whenever this comes up it always just feels like some folks are adamant about the archaic usage just to (try to) show how smart they are.

And here the clickbait titles on YouTube had me thinking “decimate” is a synonym for “insult”.

All my memory arenas are covered in sand though

And December is the tenth month of the year

All xylophones are made of wood. If they're made of metal (or if they're made of wood and have sounding tubes), you call them something else.

https://www.savagechickens.com/2007/08/public-service-announ...

That ship has long since sailed.

OED dates the first known use of "to reduce drastically or severely; to destroy, ruin, devastate" to 1660.

Very irrational, yes, considering one definition of “decimate” is actually roughly “destroyed”.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/decimate

I'm mildly annoyed that the word "alternate" has come to mean the same thing as "alternative". I'm annoyed because "alternate" is actually a useful word that I'd like to use sometimes to express myself concisely and unambiguously.

But "decimate"? How often do you feel the need to refer to reducing the size of something by one tenth? This is bizarrely specific and I highly doubt it ever has any real applications unless you invent one.

There was an old Tenant-era Dr Who episode where The Master says "shall we decimate them? yes, let's decimate them. REMOVE ONE TENTH."

I instantly howled with anguish. Surely decimating them should mean removing NINE tenths. The Master was a small-minded coward.

I'd bet 'learnings' gets you going as well, and if it doesn't, it should, and I apologise for introducing you to some new modern idiocy.

Seriously though, languages change.

Language changes over time. Release your hate. Get with the times.

This wasn't on my radar until... now! I will take up your banner with glee

I'll sacrifice a goat in Jupiter's temple for you.

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