Decimation Does Not Mean Destruction.
People increasingly use the word “decimated” to mean “utterly destroyed.”
This may be understandable. But it is also wrong.
Decimation refers specifically to the reduction of something by one tenth.
The term originates from the Roman military practice of decimatio, a disciplinary punishment in which one soldier in every ten was executed by the remaining nine.
Which, while undeniably severe, is very much not the same thing as:
“everything was destroyed.”
In fact, the continued existence of the other ninety percent is rather central to the concept.
This distinction matters because words meaning specific things is important.
Otherwise language begins collapsing into emotional approximation.
And while emotional approximation may be perfectly adequate for:
- modern art,
- scented candles,
- and conversations beginning with “I just feel like…”
it is less useful in communication intended to convey actual information.
Now, to be fair, language evolves.
Dictionaries increasingly accept “decimated” as a synonym for:
- devastated,
- annihilated,
- or heavily damaged,
largely because at some point lexicographers become too exhausted to continue fighting the public.
And honestly:
fair enough.
But somewhere deep in the administrative core of my brain remains the quiet conviction that if a town has been:
- levelled,
- vaporised,
- or entirely wiped from existence,
then “decimated” is not the correct word no matter how many dictionaries have given up the fight.
Because at least nine tenths of it should still be there.
This does occasionally create problems while watching action films.
Characters will stare solemnly across apocalyptic wastelands announcing:
“The city has been decimated.”
No it hasn’t.
It has been obliterated.
If the city had merely been decimated, Starbucks would still be open and somebody would be complaining online about delayed courier deliveries.
Which, now I think about it, may actually be how the Roman Empire would have wanted to be remembered.
Anyway.
Precision matters.
— g