Re: [Marxism] The Coming Worm Apocalypse Should Terrify You
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * On Mon, Aug 06, 2018 at 08:33:51AM -0700, Ken Hiebert via Marxism wrote: > > A point of English usage > Am I hopelessly out of date if I remind readers (and writers) that > decimate means to kill one in ten, not eight in ten? > ken h Sadly, you are correct but it seems hopeless to educate people. From https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/decimate: verb [with object] 1 Kill, destroy, or remove a large proportion of. ‘the inhabitants of the country had been decimated’ 1.1 Drastically reduce the strength or effectiveness of (something) ‘public transport has been decimated’ 2 historical Kill one in every ten of (a group of people, originally a mutinous Roman legion) as a punishment for the whole group. ‘the man who is to determine whether it be necessary to decimate a large body of mutineers’ Usage Historically, the meaning of the word decimate is ‘kill one in every ten of (a group of people)’. This sense has been more or less totally superseded by the later, more general sense ‘kill, destroy, or remove a large proportion of’, as in the virus has decimated the population. Some traditionalists argue that this is incorrect, but it is clear that it is now part of standard English Origin Late Middle English: from Latin decimat- ‘taken as a tenth’, from the verb decimare, from decimus ‘tenth’. In Middle English the term decimation denoted the levying of a tithe, and later the tax imposed by Cromwell on the Royalists (1655). _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] The Coming Worm Apocalypse Should Terrify You
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * ...and don't get me started on the misuse of "literally "... I heard someone say the other day, "my boss walked in, and I literally shat myself" I'm pretty certain he meant figuratively, or my guess is we wouldn't be colleagues any more. On Mon, 6 Aug 2018, 17:04 David McDonald via Marxism, < marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote: > POSTING RULES & NOTES > #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. > #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. > #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. > * > > Ken Hiebert, unfortunately, you are hopelessly out of date despite being > correct historically and etomologically. The most recent actual decimation > I'm aware of followed the unsuccessful May Uprising of 1919 in which a > barracks of Red solders was decimated by Freikorp goons. Nowadays it is > synonymous with massacre. > > I also lament the loss of the real meaning of unique in the morass of > impossible qualifiers: really unique, highly unique, most unique, more > unique. But then we have all kinds of words for things that cannot be, for > instance the sentence "It is inconceivable that...", a sentence that > contradicts itself when uttered. > > I am not happy with "I will try and explain this to you" as a meaningless > substitute for "I will try TO explain this to you." > > You got me started! > _ > Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm > Set your options at: > http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/nelsontim86%40gmail.com > _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] The Coming Worm Apocalypse Should Terrify You
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Ken Hiebert, unfortunately, you are hopelessly out of date despite being correct historically and etomologically. The most recent actual decimation I'm aware of followed the unsuccessful May Uprising of 1919 in which a barracks of Red solders was decimated by Freikorp goons. Nowadays it is synonymous with massacre. I also lament the loss of the real meaning of unique in the morass of impossible qualifiers: really unique, highly unique, most unique, more unique. But then we have all kinds of words for things that cannot be, for instance the sentence "It is inconceivable that...", a sentence that contradicts itself when uttered. I am not happy with "I will try and explain this to you" as a meaningless substitute for "I will try TO explain this to you." You got me started! _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] The Coming Worm Apocalypse Should Terrify You,
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * On 8/6/18 9:28 AM, DW via Marxism wrote: The book is still out on this and it's being studies but the consensus is slowly developing that invasive earth worm species are detrimental to forest health. As opposed to Weyerhaeuser et al? _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
