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Comment by unnamed76ri | Hacker News Reader

I don’t know if you can factually back up your claims but I applaud your proper use of decimate. It is a rare thing. One might even say it happens less than 10% of the time.

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Decimation was way worse than reduction by a tenth. It was a punishment in the Roman army where the offending unit was divided into groups of 10 and each group had to draw straws. Whoever drew the short straw must be stoned or clubbed to death by the other 9.

If you threatened me with death if I didn't cut off my feet, I wouldn't consider that "reduction by 10%" even if mathematically it might be.

Look on the bright side, it would have been much more harsh, had they worked in binary.

Yep. 10 times worse.

Would you say it's half as bad as the worst-case scenario?

Hmm.. Is this my brain inference or the parent comment author' too: "Bright side of life" -> "Always look at the bright side of life" from "Monty Python's Life of Brian" -> plot was taking place during Roman times (mentioned in the GP comment)

Could be worse, you could be stabbed.

At least it gets you out in the fresh air.

It's not proper use, it's archaic use. Do you also claim bread is meat? A cat is a deer?

I wouldn’t say archaic or historical definitions are improper, but you’re right - the primary meaning of decimate in English changed and now means to destroy the majority of. Maybe this is because decimate was always very damaging; threat of death is very serious, regardless of the numbers.

That said, I had sweet breads recently. And a cat being a deer sounds strange in English now, but deer is still the word for animal in other Germanic languages today, even if it faded in English, so it doesn’t sound completely archaic.

I split the hair where chickens were men

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