“In this world, nothing can be said to be certain, except deci- mation .’’-almost said by Benjamin Franklin, 1789
We’ve heard the ponderous announcements from our always deeply concerned TV news crews dozens of times. Variations of “The tornado swept through without warning, decimating the small town!”
Persnickitors take umbrage when hearing such use. “The word decimate,” they declare, “is not synonymous with the word destroy!” And indeed it isn’t. “Decimate,” they declare, “refers to the Roman army’s practice of punishing mutineers or deserters by decimating . . . um . . . killing or severely beating one tenth of the group, chosen by lot.” And indeed, that is one meaning. Still, the righteous persnickitors might not have any foundation for feeling superior to our deeply concerned TV news crews when it comes to precision. You see, decimation is the taking of a tenth— deca being Latin for “ten.” The word decimation was applied to the rare Roman practice, but it was hardly the sole meaning of the word in Latin.
Nor, for that matter, in English. Neither the sole meaning nor even the original meaning. And here’s where we reintroduce Mr. Franklin and our mangling of his quote that introduced this entry. Yes, decimation in English describes the Roman military punishment, but such description is not the first English use of the word. Decimation first came to English by the middle of the sixteenth century meaning “tithing or taxation at the rate of one tenth.”
So meanings of decimation of which we can be certain, are . . . death . . . and taxes.' 4
54 Briefly returning to the travails of our small town, using decimate might actually be true to the meaning of punishing every tenth one, given the capricious nature of tornados—picking up random cars out of an otherwise undamaged parldng lot and flinging them half way across the county. But the possibility of such precise use is likely being overly gracious to our deeply concerned TV news crews.