Decimated

[SugarPlumpFairyCakes]

I hear this used a lot on the radio news etc.

I think it's used to mean destroyed when it doesn't mean that.

So will it be now accepted as meaning destroyed. The word's meaning will evolve as a verbally accepted alternative to the original meaning?

One Of the meanings is “to inflict great destruction”!

I think the word has been used long enough now that to mean destruction is more fitting than it’s original use.

It means largely destroyed. Do you feel it’s used in a context that doesn’t reflect that widely accepted definition?

Decimate hasn't only meant 'reduction by one tenth' for a long time. That is just a historical definition now according to most dictionaries.

I think it has meant destroyed for a very long time now, with the original meaning passing into history.

Agreed. And anyway, reducing something by a tenth usually destroys the thing being reduced

So frontally it was destroy by one tenth at a time.

So the meaning has changed.

Originally not frontally.

Yes, the meaning has already changed. The joys of the evolution of language!

As part of my degree I completed a module which examined how English use has changed and is changing, in the world.
As you know the etymology of some words is completely different to their original meaning; a prime example of this is “nice”, originally meant “foolish”, or “bully” which meant “sweetheart”!
English words continually flux (look up the original meaning of flux) and that has always been the way of English.

Oops.

I think it’s a bit of a shame when a word which once had a specific meaning mutates into vagueness, especially if it contains something like a number within it (see recent thread about six ‘quadrants’ and cities with random numbers of ‘quarters’).
But in this case maybe it’s a good thing that afaik there’s no continued need for the original meaning of randomly killing a tenth of one of your army units as a punishment.

I know language mutates and changes and that's the way with a dynamic system. I don't have to like it though, especially when one is unfortunate enough to be living through the period whilst it changes.

Nonplussed. Case in point. Just... don't.

If you restricted it to only the original meaning it would fall out of use completely which would be a shame as it is somehow a very satisfying word.

I’m nonplussed by the misuse of that to mean something pretty much its opposite. How on earth did that ever get established?

I agree. Another example is universities which manage to fit three semesters into one year.

See also, much to my chagrin, “literally”

The meaning of literally has changed in my lifetime which is mind boggling. I think decimated has been, er, decimated over a longer period.

I don't think much about semesters because I think in terms of terms, but I know enough of semis, demis, and hemis to have thought that a semester was a half, when I just read your post, and the dictionary confirms so. Thank you. As they say on MN, every day's a learning day. It was, even before MN began!

Off topic, but a bit in ‘Legally Blonde’ that absolutely infuriates me is when Enid, Harvard post-grad, says she’s petitioning for ‘semester’ to be changed to ‘ovester’ as part of her feminist cause…

Semester looks like it should be related to semi, but it's not: it comes from the Latin for six months, just as trimester, means three months. I haven't seen Legally Blonde, but I'm amused, not infuriated, by the 'ovester' quote.