So do you restrict the application of "dilapidated" only to stone
structures? Do you believe that "nice" _really_ means "ignorant"? Or
that a "gossip" is actually a godparent?

That line of thinking is generally known as the etymological fallacy for
good reason.

DD Farms wrote:
> 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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