At 06:25 AM 1/30/2008, STAHLKE, HERBERT F wrote:
>DD,
>Here's the relevant portion of the OED entry for "decimate." {And 
>cited definition 4b.} . . .

DD: I know that the dictionaries go to usage. That hoi polloi use the 
word in their ignorance of the underlying derivation does not bother 
me. From a Information Theory view, I know what they mean.

>If you look at the full entry, the military meaning as applied to 
>the Roman army practice of killing every tenth man in a mutinous 
>unit is the third meaning.  The first two, which are obsolete, are 
>"tithing" and "dividing into tenths." . . .

DD: The point being it originally had the general meaning of one tenth.

>I think you may almost be guilty of the etymological fallacy.  But 
>it was only the third meaning, so you're partly exonerated.

DD: I think not. I was implying, not the Roman practice so much, as 
the idea of tenth. Still I fall often to word folly.

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