A Speccie reader (Noel) wants to know if the media is using ‘decimated’ correctly, when a commenter calls on Hamas to be ‘decimated’ and means ‘totally destroyed’? The answer to Noel’s question is: yes and no – which needs a bit of explanation.

‘Decimated’ is recorded from 1591. From the beginning it had the meaning of ‘to kill, destroy, or remove one in every ten’ (Oxford English Dictionary). It comes from a practice of the ancient Roman army. If a platoon of soldiers did the wrong thing (perhaps they fled in the face of the enemy, or looted where they were not allowed) the punishment would be that their commanding officer would select one tenth of the platoon by lot – and then kill them. It was that sort of army. (I suppose that’s one way of keeping the troops in order!)

But the point being made by that first Oxford definition, is that to be ‘decimated’ means ‘to reduce by a tenth’ not ‘to reduce to a tenth.’ That’s the origin of the word. So if a town in north Queensland is completely destroyed by a cyclone it is just wrong to say that the town has been ‘decimated’.

Or is it? The truth is that usage changes over time. And for a very long time now in conversational English it has been normal to use ‘decimated’ to mean ‘destroyed’. We can’t ignore how common and widespread this usage is, and we must admit that this is now how many (or perhaps most?) English language users think of ‘to decimate’. If so, the meaning has changed. It now means (second definition): ‘to reduce drastically or severely; to destroy, ruin, devastate’ (Oxford English Dictionary).

This new meaning has been recorded since around 1600 – so it’s no recent innovation. The Oxford adds this usage note: ‘This use has sometimes been criticized on etymological grounds, but is now the most usual sense in standard English.’ Hence my reply to Noel’s question – yes and no!