This one makes sense to have been queued up ahead of time. The comments on Gasoline Alley these days are heavily weighted towards guys posting retro strips. One of them is Jewish, and posted an extra one last night because he wouldn’t be able to get one early in tomorrow’s comments.
As far a judging, the “then” for “than” is the one that most rankles me.
Whenever I turn into a grammar Nazi, I try to remind myself that fighting incorrect usage is like trying to stop the tide with a broom.
Of course it changes from week to week, depending on what one has recently run into. But I think over the last couple of years the hot button for me has been “lead” for “led”. In writing, where you know the spelling “lead” can be pronounced like “led” — when it means the metallic element — and that’s how the writer is coming up with that spelling, not out of a deep confusion about present and past tenses.
The truly frustrating part is when you just know that mistake is happening, but the sentence or sequence of tenses allows for an interpretation where the “lead” could legit be a present tense form, even where past simple or participle “led” would be more likely. “These steps lead the scientists to their discovery ..” Arrgh.
“Leading” gets more complicated if you bring in typography. You adjust the vertical space between lines by adjusting the “leading”. It sure seems as if that should refer to the amount of space that leads the line. But, the term goes back to when metal was used in hand-set presses and is pronounced based on the soft metal it’s actually named after.
My bugaboo is “women” used as singular. It’s so rampant, it’s used by professional wordsmiths who should definitely know better. There’s even a play which is reported on half as “She’s a Woman” and half as “She’s a Women”.
And this comment went into moderation, which it’ll never come out of, so I’ll try repeating it:
“Leading” gets more complicated if you bring in typography. You adjust the vertical space between lines by adjusting the “leading”. It sure seems as if that should refer to the amount of space that leads the line. But, the term goes back to when metal was used in hand-set presses and is pronounced based on the soft metal it’s actually named after.
My bugaboo is “women” used as singular. It’s so rampant, it’s used by professional wordsmiths who should definitely know better. There’s even a play which is reported on half as “She’s a Woman” and half as “She’s a Women”.
I still demurr from “alot” but did find myself on a few occasions recently writing that something would be “alright”.
My pet hatred is “one of the only.”
. . . and ‘one of the best’ and ‘one of my favorite’ and ‘one of the top’ . . . you cannot modify an absolute.
In addition to NPR’s “So…” disease, I would add “<any comparative adjective>”+”unique” to the list of cardinal grammar sins.
P.S. My current location prevents me from using the “nazi” suffix, unless I’m talking to relatives in America. Over here, that word is just not kosher.
“alot,” has no business existing. “your” and “to” misapplied are my irks.
I’ve often wondered where ‘alot’ ever came from. [I know – dangling participle. Mea Culpa.]
I find myself correcting REPLIES and FORWARDS; I don’t think the recipient of my reply/forward even notices.
@ Andréa – That participle is relatively firmly attached, it does not dangle. What it does do is end the sentence with a preposition, a rule which we should boldly cease to offer support to.
Right – my misteak! ‘-)
As I think I posted here at least once before, consider the story of the mother who, intending to read to her son in his upstairs bedroom, selected a book on Australia, even though he’s previously indicated no interest in it. So, inevitably, he complained “Why did you bring that book I don’t want to be read to out of about Down Under up for?”
What is wrong with using best as a group descriptor? Nadal, Djokivic and Federer are the three best tennis players. Nadal is one of the best. It is entirely possibly to have a tie for best or favorite, and therefore “one of the [best|favorite]” is legitimate. Olympians are considered the best athletes in the world. Simone Biles is one of the best.
I can’t help with “one of the only” or “very unique.” Those don’t make a lot of sense.
Andréa: I see no problem with “one of my favorites” or “one of the top.” “My favorites” and “the top” in this context refer to superlative tiers. Princeton is (arguably) one of the top universities, not because I’ve rank-ordered every single university, without ties, and it came out #1, but because I’ve graded the universities into echelons, and it’s in the (single) top echelon.
I do, however, see a problem with not refreshing the page, so that you just repeat the comment above you. ;)
Winter Wallaby – Except in your case you stated it better. Yours is one of the best comments I’ve see on this use of best. :)
Thanks, TedD. You also stated it better!
I used to get upset about “one of the only.” I’m still not fond of it. But I came across something that ameliorates my pain: idioms, by their nature, do not mean what the words appear to mean. In fact, it’s part of a definition of idiom: “An expression whose meanings cannot be inferred from the meanings of the words that make it up.” That helps me put up with this and all to many other idioms which don’t say what they mean.
Arthur, I used to feel that I could care less whether an idiom was internally consistent with it’s constituent terms. But since then, I’ve done a complete 360.
Now there’s another one . . . it’s and its.
I have had to overcome the use of “lay down” versus “lie down” and others mentioned here. But worse than that, as much as I love my mother (may she Rest In Peace), I had to teach myself that there was no “R” in wash. “Go warsh your hands”.
Mark M, nor is there a ‘d’ in rouge, my mother always said, ‘roodge’.
Hi all! No one has said it… I am irked by the PBS announcement that the funding came from “people like you”, as I reply “… such as yourself.” Also irksome is confusion with past and passed.
Andréa: another one?
I have a good friend from Michigan who says ‘warsh’ and I sometimes say it myself, albeit with intention ’cause I’m thinking of her.
I don’t get worked up over accents, which I consider wash-warsh to be an example of. I used to get worked up over epenthesis (e.g. turning two-syllable athlete into three syllable ath-uh-lete). Then I realized that I and (possible all of the) sports announcers said pentath-uh-lon and decath-uh-lon. I started (even retroactively) giving people slack for such.
Andréa: “Attorney at Law” is not redundant. An “attorney” is a person appointed to act for another in business or legal matters. A “lawyer” is a person who practices law, or more specifically someone who is licensed by the state to practice law. I am not a lawyer but I am attorney-in-fact for my aged mother. A lawyer is not an attorney until he or she has a client. Lawyers call themselves “attorneys” to indicate that they have clients, because nobody wants to be the first one to hire a brand-new lawyer.
Someone should tell the cartoonist; I never knew that.
MiB, thanks for posting that. I wanted to say approximately that, but wasn’t sure enough of it.
“Gets my goat” really rubs me the wrong way….
….Kidding. :-P
Baa humbug!
I’ve heard cat or dog owners talk about grooming and brushing techniques, and quite un-selfconsciously say things like “You were rubbing her the wrong way”.
Every time I hear the phrase , “At the end of the day”, I want to scream. I don’t know why, but it just . . . irritates me.
At the end of the day, the bottom line is that we’re all on the same page. If we think outside the box, our customer-centric solution will put us in a win-win scenario, as long as we use the synergy of our value-added paradigm. We only need the low-hanging fruit because, moving forward, the 80/20 rule will knock the ball out of the park.
@ Mitch4 – Here’s a cogent solution for the “alright” disease:
Well, I certainly have some strong opinions on word usage, but I can’t get myself worked up too much about this. It’s easy enough to mistype homophones. I do it all the time (as my posts will show) and I certainly know the difference and if I bothered to proofread I’d be much less likely to do it. But, you know, I’m not going to proofread this post. I just finished rewriting an 18,000 word document a client gave us. It was not very well written when he handed it to us…
Onto my complaints.
Any qualifier used with “unique” annoys the F out of me.
Using “literally” to mean “figuratively”. But we’ve lost that battle. The clueless Millennial will just roll their eyes and “OK Boomer” you.
Using “decimate” as a synonym of “destroy”. Could it be confusion with “devastate” that started it?
Data is a plural. That train has long since left the station and won’t be coming back. All our clients use “data” as singular. If I edited the work to reflected that its plural nature, I’d just have to change it back after they complained.
No, “irregardless” is not a word. The fact that enough dumb people used it that it wound up in (some) dictionaries doesn’t mean you’re write. It means there is something wrong with the world.
“Effect” and “affect” are both great words and have distinct meanings. Why are you replacing them both with “impact”, Mr. Businessman?
It’s not a “challenge”. It’s a problem.
Accents are not fair game for criticism. But mispronunciation is. It is a fine line I walk and only I know where the right side is.
Andréa, if I cannot modify “best” because it is absolute, how would I say your comment is the second best in the thread?
Singapore Bill–yes, yes, yes!! I should of said those things. ;-)
“Any qualifier used with “unique” annoys the F out of me.”
YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I’m a grammar snob for sure, but I have no problem modifying unique.
Nothing is completely unique, e.g., none of its properties are shared by any other thing in existence. If something is “unique”, we take as a given that only some of its properties are actually unique.
So, in that case, it stands to reason that we can qualify “unique” by the relative number and importance of those of its properties that are unique. if something is unique in only a minor way, it can be said to be “somewhat unique”. If something is unique in a wide variety of different ways, it can be said to be “very unique”.
There is nothing wrong with this usage in my opinion.
Overcompensation, such as “Between you and I”.
SingaporeBill – literally used as figuratively goes back hundreds of years. Hundreds. For how long does a word need to be used before you’ll accept that definition of the word? This is one of those words that grammar snobs keep wanting to say is a lost cause but it has been used that way for a long, long time.
Irregardless has been around a long time as well. This isn’t some new corruption of the language. As much as I didn’t like the use of either of those in the ways you describe, a little research showed that to be an ill placed annoyance.
To complain that “decimate” can only mean to destroy 1/10ths of something strikes me as silly. We’re not Romans, and we’re not speaking Latin. It’s predominant meaning has been “to destroy much of something” for well over a century. One might as well complain that “pease” is a collective noun, and that people who talk about a singular “pea” are wrong.
One might as well complain that “pease” is a collective noun, and that people who talk about a singular “pea” are wrong.
Didn’t we recently go into “pease porridge hot” as illustrating “pease” as a mass [or non-count] noun?
Oh, man, the first “it’s” was intentional, but that new one was a real misteak. :(
This is literally the 2nd best thread I’ve seen here, and somewhat unique too.
Andréa – I believe that one of the difficulties that writers
of English have in choosing between “it’s” and “its” is that
people trying to teach or help explain the difference focus
on the contraction of “it is” and the resulting apostrophe,
where the apostrophe is also seen in possessives such as
“John’s boat”, and “the Smiths’ house”.
I find that relying on the parallelism of: “his, hers, its” is a simpler
mnemonic device, and seems far less likely to result in confusion.
Speaking of apostrophes, I just saw another use of the “greengrocer’s apostrophe” on a YouTube video, that promised some “Meal Idea’s”.
At a company I worked for, another company bought us and immediately laid off 10% of the employees.
I said that the acquiring company had “literally decimated” us.
A co-worker said “I really hate it when people say ‘literally’ when they mean ‘figuratively’.”
I just stared at him, astounded.
He mumbled something to the effect that you can “literally” decimate only an army, and only if you happen to be in Ancient Rome, and only if it’s every tenth person lined up at random.
Stan — as far as “alot” goes, Allie Brosh solved that problem ten years ago:
“Alot” is also one of my pet peeves, but I have seen (and enjoyed) the hyperboleandahalf take on it. “Her and I did that together” also drives me crazy, but I realize that it’s okay when you say “She read to him and I,” and not okay to say, “She read to he and I.”
“She read to him and me” is correct. “She read to him and I” is not.
Color me surprised & educated. Until now, I thought the result of decimation was that only 1/10 of the original group survived; that 90% had been done in.
Mark in Boston: Like I said earlier, I think it’s silly to insist that decimate doesn’t mean “drastically reduce.” However, if one is going to insist on the requirement of “1/10th,” I don’t see any reason that one shouldn’t also insist on the requirements of “killing” or “randomness.” e.g. from Merriam-Webster:
“1: to select by lot and kill every tenth man of”
“2: to exact a tax of 10 percent from”
“3a: to reduce drastically especially in number”
“3b: to cause great destruction or harm to”
If someone is going to insist on only using definition #1, why shouldn’t they insist on every aspect of definition #1? (And perhaps add a requirement of being in ancient Rome.)
Vice principal in my high school could not get Meryl – I was always Merle. For graduation we each had to write our name on a piece of card stock and hand it to him to read as went up. I wrote it out phonetically – still came out Merle.
Husband wrote a letter to his best friend from when he was young (best man at our wedding) using his computer. (This is before the Internet.) He handed it to me to read and tell him I want to add anything. He had used the wrong version of to or too and I told him. Rather than waste the paper for the small mistake he crossed it out and wrote in the correct word and “this is why wives are better than spell check”.
I have two points to make based on the 1913 Webster’s unabridged definition of decimate:
1. To take the tenth part of; to tithe.
2. To select by lot and punish with death every tenth man of; as, to decimate a regiment as a punishment for mutiny.
3. To destroy a considerable part of; as, to decimate an army in battle; to decimate a people by disease.
First, the first definition has nothing to do with the Romans, lot, or killing. Second, the third definition shows it’s been used without regard to a tenth for more than 100 years. As someone put it, “Etymology is not definition.”
@ Grawlix – “Do other cultures have these discussions?”
German has a concept called “Volksetymologie“, in which the derivation of a word is generally understood (by non-linguists) from a false assumption about its form or meaning. Perhaps the easiest example to explain (to non-Germans) is “Bratwurst“: most people assume that the sausage takes its name from “braten“, meaning “to fry”, but the “true” derivation comes from the root “pret” (or “bret“), referring to the finely chopped meat in the filling.
Yes, the English term “folk etymology” is exactly the same.
Actually, two usages can probably be distinguished, though still obviously related . One is what Kilby describes for the German term – folk beliefs or folklore about particular word origins or relations.
But it also is applied in linguistics for the process of new word creation or evolution when it is probably based off just such a (false) belief.
For example the coinage “monokini” [for certain kinds of one-piece swimsuit] can be called a folk etymology, or a creation of or by folk etymology. That’s because someone (actually or notionally) took “bikini” to be not the place name it actually is, but rather to have “bi-” as a sort of prefix meaning “two” and then substituting “mono-” to indicate “one”.
Ian, thanks for that link on “alot”, and introducing Allie Brosch. I wasn’t aware of her at all, but now want to see more of her writing.
Do any of you word nerds listen to the podcast “Word Matters”? Three Merriam Webster dictionary writers bring up interesting tidbits. I find it fascinating.
@ Mitch4 – The current pandemic has produced a more recent neologism: the “trikini” is a bikini+mask, all in the same fabric. (I’m not putting the image URL here in viewable form, because it will get moderated. Just click on the link.)
The current pandemic has produced a more recent neologism: the “trikini” is a bikini+mask, all in the same fabric. Unfortunately, my first attempt (with an image link) was sent to moderation, so you will have to look it up for yourself.
@powers, yup. I clearly needed sleep when I wrote that. So focused on he/him, I wasn’t thinking about me/I.
From an email I just received: “Thanks for the well wishes,[…]”
Not really a pet peeve of mine, but something I’ve been noticing, as apparently a new formation. It seems to me likely a back-formation from “well-wishers” meaning those who wish you well. But more traditionally you would say “the good wishes” , no?
Interesting. TedD scolds me and tells me I’m wrong because I look at more recent use and reject old time use when I complain about “misuse”. WW says it is ridiculous that I look to the older origins and use of words when I complain about misuse of words.
Just supports, I guess, what we see in the various comments: words and use that peeve us tend to be emotional reactions to which rationales and logic have been retro-fitted. I’ll admit that for me. Given that I used to and, now again do, make a living writing, I really don’t like anything that I feel impedes understanding or makes communication less clear. If we have words that mean “destroy” and “devastate”, why strip “decimate” of a more specific meaning? Having distinct meanings for “literally” and “figuratively” reduces the chance for confusion:
“Driving home, she knew the preparations for Thanksgiving dinner would be in full swing. The kitchen would be frantic with activities as multiple relatives all trying to get various dishes ready. Still, she was surprised to find the kitchen literally ablaze.”
So…no, I’m not giving up on that distinction. It doesn’t feel right or useful. On the other hand, I’ve been onboard singular “they/them/their” for years because sex-specific pronouns don’t ad much value and I just don’t have any emotional reaction for or against it. That’s an example where I feel reason is guiding the way with little emotion. Of course, the whole point of the comic is about emotional reactions to certain forms of language use. Grammar snob? Hardly a snob, but I do care about it. Still there are worse things than being a grammar snob. I could be the kind of person who goes around telling people their emotions are wrong.
WW let me see if I’ve got this right. You are arguing in favour of your point that those of use who lament the “destroyification” of “decimate”, wherein it becomes a simple synonym of “destroy” and “devastate” are horribly wrong. We are being prescriptivist and should loosen up and get with the times and realize that word meanings change and that we cannot be bound by dictates and usage of the past. To prove this point you are waving around a dictionary and demanding “You have to go by what somebody wrote in this book! You cannot deviate!” Did I get that right?
We accept you. One of us. :)
WW let me see if I’ve got this right. You are arguing in favour of your point that those of use who lament the “destroyification” of “decimate”, wherein it becomes a simple synonym of “destroy” and “devastate” are horribly wrong. We are being prescriptivist and should loosen up and get with the times and realize that word meanings change and that we cannot be bound by dictates and usage of the past. To prove this point you are waving around a dictionary and demanding “You have to go by what somebody wrote in this book! You cannot deviate!” Did I get that right?
We accept you. One of us. 🙂
P.S. Funny story. My fat fingers fumbled spelling my name, so off into moderation went version one of this.
The problem with “they/them/their” isn’t its gender neutrality, but its numeric ambiguity. “I heard Chris came to the party. Did they say anything to you about it?” leaves me wondering who “they” are, until I realize it’s a singular they referring to “Chris”. (Maybe!)
And before anyone says it, yes, I realize “they” has been used in the singular for a long time, but almost always with an indefinite antecedent such as “anyone” or “someone” (or even “the teacher” or other specific identifier that leaves the gender of the person unknown). The modern use to refer to a specific, named individual is rarer historically.
And before anyone says it, yes, I realize “you” is both plural and singular and we manage just fine. But had “thou” fallen out of use more recently, I would be equally in favor of restoring it to reduce ambiguity.
Dang it, stuck in moderation. We can’t go on like this.
The problem with “they/them/their” isn’t its gender neutrality, but its numeric ambiguity.
I get that, and it was my thinking for a while. But it’s a bit of a red herring. It doesn’t get that much less ambiguous if you confine t/t/t to plural:
plural they/them/their: 2 to infinity persons
singular and plural they/them/their: 1 to infinity person(s)
There are context cues:
“They don’t want to lend you their car.”
“None of them want to lend you their car.”
“They don’t want to lend you their cars.”
“I asked them if they’ll be bringing their spouse.”
“They put their lunches in the fridge.”
“They put their lunch in the fridge.”
“We liberated them during the war and now they are free.”
“We liberated them during the war and now they are free.”
That last pair is ambiguous and would need rewriting or larger context.
“The Netherlands was occupied by Germany during the World War II. We liberated them during the war and now they are free.”
“Walter De Jong was imprisoned by the Nazis during World War II. We liberated them during the war and now they are free.”
Or new rules about verbs:
“We liberated them during the war and now they is free.”
” If we have words that mean “destroy” and “devastate”, why strip “decimate” of a more specific meaning?”
Just finished a newspaper article in which is stated that COVID has ‘decimated’ our county. That would mean out of three million residents, 300,000 would have died of COVID. Luckily, that hasn’t been the case. ‘Devastate’ would have been more appropriate in this case.
Intellectually, I’m descriptivist. Emotionally, I’m prescriptivist. I understand both sides. I try to live by Postel’s law: Be conservative in what you do, be liberal in what you accept from others.
“Well-wisher” has been ruined for me by The Simpsons. As Moe put it, “I’m more of a ‘well-wisher’, in that I don’t wish you any specific harm.”
Uh.. SingaporeBill… unless I’m missing something, you were lamenting the fact that current use for literally is to convey figuratively. I don’t understand your statement about more current use. Many years ago those words were used in ways you were complaining about. Today those same words are used in that same way. Unless you are claiming in the intervening period those words were used differently, I don’t get your point. Even if they were used differently in the intervening years, you should be GLAD they are going back to original usage because, apparently, you don’t much like when people start using words in different ways.
Arthur, yes! I think I have found a credo that I can fully embrace. Am I descriptivist or prescriptivist? Yes! No! It depends!
The prescriptivist gets more of a workout, though. Corporate clients want their corporate materials to not be too edgy or modern. Unless they say they do. And then it turns out they were wrong.
@ Andréa – Even when using current population and mortality statistics (328 million vs. 206 thousand), the grim truth is that at the current rate (750 per day), that verb will be mathematically accurate before mid-March.
Singapore Bill: No, you did not get that right. With respect, that’s not even remotely close to anything I wrote.
My complaint about insisting that “decimate” must mean killing exactly 1/10th is not that it’s prescriptivist. It’s that it’s bad prescriptivism, similar to insisting that one must not end a sentence in a preposition, or cannot split an infinitive.
For well over a century, “decimate” has mostly been used to mean “destroy large amounts of.” It’s hardly ever used to mean “to kill 1/10th of,” and it’s not even clear that there ever was a time when the predominant usage was “to kill 1/10th of.” Which is quite understandable, since there would hardly ever be occasion to use such a word. Insisting on an exclusive meaning of “to kill 1/10ths of” isn’t resisting language change; it’s attempting to change language, and in a way that if successful, would just make the word obsolete.
Kilby: Hm, maybe check your math? I get a little over a century. (I’m assuming “our country” in the article is the United States, and that the “three million” in Andréa’s comment is a typo.)
WW,Andréa said the article was about her county, not her country. The 3 million, I assume, is the population of her county.
Oh, whoops, that makes more sense.
We have our own folk etymologies. For instance “butterfly”: originally “flutterby”, somehow Spoonerized over the years. (Anybody who speaks Dutch can probably see the problem here.
A couple of years ago I directed a church choir in a Christmas cantata in which the narrator explains that “Noel” comes from “Now all is well,” as in “Christ is born! Now all is well” As far as I know, that is entirely the invention of the writer of the Christmas cantata. I think it’s the worst spurious etymology I’ve ever seen.
I can’t vouch for this etymology, but it *sounds* well-researched:
I like the.idea of a film clip crediting the font!
I was referring to just Pinellas County, not the entire country. The article was in reference to keeping the mask mandate in Pinellas County.
Just today, I heard someone on NPR, of all sources, saying that someone was “reticent” to take some action. She clearly should have said “reluctant.” but I’ve heard this mistake way too often in recent years. It drives me nuts.
OK, I messed that up. I wanted to ask if anyone here knows about this plan.
Boise Ed: The plans are still somewhat in flux. You can see the discussion of alternatives, and some progress towards resolution, in the Random Comments Thread. Plans are crystallizing, but I don’t feel that I can say for sure at this point exactly what has been decided, and what’s still in discussion.
Hiya Ed!
Yes, the discussion has been in the Random Comments page. Also see the post called Recent News and comments there.
Sorry about the blunder. I goofed badly with the decimal point. My result is not for 10% (that would be 32.8 million), but for 1‰ (meaning 0.1%, or 328K).
@BoiseEd: maybe contamination from Québec? In French, “réticent”=reluctant.
Just as a reminder to anyone who might not yet know:
1) Please see the “Recent News” thread for information about the recent death of Bill Bickel. Unfortunately, it is not (currently) possible for new participants to place (unmoderated) condolences there, but the opening paragraph contains a link to Bill’s obituary page, which is open to new participants.
2) For information about the future of CIDU, please refer to “Random Comments“, including links to various chat forums and test setups. You can skip quickly to the last page by clinking on the “NNN Comments” link in the header table.
Kilby: I can release comments in the “Recent News” thread from moderation, although there may be a fair amount of latency in the release time.
“someone was ‘reticent’ to take some action.”
“He’s taking action, folks, but he won’t tell us why!”
Well, that was wrong . . . here’s what it was SUPPOSED to be . . .
American kids are so intelligent! Kids anywhere else wouldn’t get more than 37.
So I guess even my misteak leads to funny comments. I won’t request my misteaken post be removed, just ’cause Olivier made the best possible reply.
I turned 75 a few days ago, and have been responding to correspondents who noted the fact by musing that back in high school, “75” was usually the bare minimum passing score, so I can now claim to have finally cinched a “D-Minus” grade on my own life.
(I guess that means I won’t be held back and have to repeat it all over again next turn of the Wheel?)
Lesson Grade (%) Letter Equivalent Rating
90-100 A Excellent
80-89 B Good
70-79 C Average
65-69 D Passing
Below 65 F
Continued from above:
Below 65 F Failing
I meant to write: How things have changed; the bar has been lowered. Today, you [and I] would be average.
Hey 98.6!
Just remember, D’s get diplomas.
That’s great, Olivier. What other goods do you have to cels us?
MiB, or as my friend used to say, “You know what they call the guy who graduates last in med school? Doctor”
“The world is run by C students” . . . with my addendum: ‘If we’re lucky.”
Well, I just heard Former FLOTUS Michelle Obama use ‘decimate’ incorrectly, so I guess it’s generally accepted not to mean ‘every ten’.
I think we’ve established that a meaning outside of “one in ten” is not incorrect and hasn’t been for a long time.
I’m less interested in relitigating the correct usage of ‘decimate’ than I am intrigued by the idea that Michelle Obama is our standard for what’s “generally accepted.”
Actually, I was being sarcastic to that point.
Just ran across this passage in a Chicago NPR newsletter:
The news comes as the city’s finances have been decimated by the pandemic, resulting in a $800 million deficit in this year’s budget and a $1.2 billion shortfall in next year’s budget. Lightfoot is expected later this month to unveil her plan for closing the budget gap, and she has not ruled out rising property taxes and laying off city workers.
Andréa, if Michelle Obama isn’t going to be our standard, then who is?
make up your mind; either she is, or she isn’t.
Still beats “one of the only.” (And I suspect the McDonald’s burger company might at least try to argue about “most recognizable.”)
Yep. I argued earlier that “one of the best (or most)” was fine (unlike “one of the only”). So I would find the xkcd example annoying as unnecessary hedging, rather than grammatically wrong.
When I was a kid, there was a McDonalds on a boat in the Mississippi river by the Gateway Arch. Image search shows that it didn’t itself have large arches, though.
Whoever designed that arch was a very bad croquet player.
Same source, next day.
“Even before the pandemic decimated the city’s budget, Chicago faced huge financial challenges. “
So I guess it’s official: our budget will be 90% of what it was previously set at?
Even better than “one of the” is “arguably”.
“Arguably” is a word that literally means “not”.
“The Gateway Arch is arguably the most recognizable landmark in the United States.”
MiB, I agree that that’s what the word appears it should mean. But my handy dictionary says it actually means, “As can be shown by argument”.
Merriam-Webster says, in part:
“Used to say that a statement is very possibly true even if it is not certainly true.”
That being said, I’d guess the Washington Monument or Mount Rushmore would be the most recognizable, but the Gateway Arch would be right up there. As far as its shape, it’s a type of caternary curve.
I’d go for the ‘Statue de la Liberté’.
@ Brian in StL – Almost: it’s a catenary (only one R) curve, the same shape (but in the opposite direction) as a rope or chain hung from two supports.
I had looked up the spelling but somehow failed to get it in the message correctly.
Comics I Don't Understand 
This one makes sense to have been queued up ahead of time. The comments on Gasoline Alley these days are heavily weighted towards guys posting retro strips. One of them is Jewish, and posted an extra one last night because he wouldn’t be able to get one early in tomorrow’s comments.
As far a judging, the “then” for “than” is the one that most rankles me.
Whenever I turn into a grammar Nazi, I try to remind myself that fighting incorrect usage is like trying to stop the tide with a broom.
Of course it changes from week to week, depending on what one has recently run into. But I think over the last couple of years the hot button for me has been “lead” for “led”. In writing, where you know the spelling “lead” can be pronounced like “led” — when it means the metallic element — and that’s how the writer is coming up with that spelling, not out of a deep confusion about present and past tenses.
The truly frustrating part is when you just know that mistake is happening, but the sentence or sequence of tenses allows for an interpretation where the “lead” could legit be a present tense form, even where past simple or participle “led” would be more likely. “These steps lead the scientists to their discovery ..” Arrgh.
“Leading” gets more complicated if you bring in typography. You adjust the vertical space between lines by adjusting the “leading”. It sure seems as if that should refer to the amount of space that leads the line. But, the term goes back to when metal was used in hand-set presses and is pronounced based on the soft metal it’s actually named after.
My bugaboo is “women” used as singular. It’s so rampant, it’s used by professional wordsmiths who should definitely know better. There’s even a play which is reported on half as “She’s a Woman” and half as “She’s a Women”.
http://www.google.com/search?gbv=1&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&tbs=li%3A1&q=%22she%27s+a+women%22+%22miz+Cracker%22&oq=&aqs=
vs
http://www.google.com/search?gbv=1&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&tbs=li%3A1&q=%22she%27s+a+woman%22+%22miz+Cracker%22&oq=&aqs=
And this comment went into moderation, which it’ll never come out of, so I’ll try repeating it:
“Leading” gets more complicated if you bring in typography. You adjust the vertical space between lines by adjusting the “leading”. It sure seems as if that should refer to the amount of space that leads the line. But, the term goes back to when metal was used in hand-set presses and is pronounced based on the soft metal it’s actually named after.
My bugaboo is “women” used as singular. It’s so rampant, it’s used by professional wordsmiths who should definitely know better. There’s even a play which is reported on half as “She’s a Woman” and half as “She’s a Women”.
http://www.google.com/search?gbv=1&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&tbs=li%3A1&q=%22she%27s+a+women%22+%22miz+Cracker%22&oq=&aqs=
vs
http://www.google.com/search?gbv=1&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&tbs=li%3A1&q=%22she%27s+a+woman%22+%22miz+Cracker%22&oq=&aqs=
I also had a post about “leading” in typography which is pronounced like the metal it’s named for, but it keeps going into moderation.
Lay for lie – I’m going to lay down. Arrrgh! The others mentioned here bother me, but that’s my bugaboo.
“alot” gets my goat. At least this cartoonist won’t be on the receiving end of my ire.
https://safr.kingfeatures.com/api/img.php?e=png&s=c&file=RHVzdGluLzIwMjAvMDkvRHVzdGluX250Yi4yMDIwMDkyN18xNTM2LnBuZw==
I still demurr from “alot” but did find myself on a few occasions recently writing that something would be “alright”.
My pet hatred is “one of the only.”
. . . and ‘one of the best’ and ‘one of my favorite’ and ‘one of the top’ . . . you cannot modify an absolute.
In addition to NPR’s “So…” disease, I would add “<any comparative adjective>”+”unique” to the list of cardinal grammar sins.
P.S. My current location prevents me from using the “nazi” suffix, unless I’m talking to relatives in America. Over here, that word is just not kosher.
“alot,” has no business existing. “your” and “to” misapplied are my irks.
I, too, don’t like the ‘grammar nazi’ or ‘fashion nazi’ references . . . probably for similar reasons. Bizarro’s blog had a riff on this yesterday . . .
https://www.bizarro.com/blog/2020/9/27/grammar-culture?mc_cid=b94cd38e77&mc_eid=9c1d7f19f7
I’ve often wondered where ‘alot’ ever came from. [I know – dangling participle. Mea Culpa.]
I find myself correcting REPLIES and FORWARDS; I don’t think the recipient of my reply/forward even notices.
@ Andréa – That participle is relatively firmly attached, it does not dangle. What it does do is end the sentence with a preposition, a rule which we should boldly cease to offer support to.
Right – my misteak! ‘-)
As I think I posted here at least once before, consider the story of the mother who, intending to read to her son in his upstairs bedroom, selected a book on Australia, even though he’s previously indicated no interest in it. So, inevitably, he complained “Why did you bring that book I don’t want to be read to out of about Down Under up for?”
What is wrong with using best as a group descriptor? Nadal, Djokivic and Federer are the three best tennis players. Nadal is one of the best. It is entirely possibly to have a tie for best or favorite, and therefore “one of the [best|favorite]” is legitimate. Olympians are considered the best athletes in the world. Simone Biles is one of the best.
I can’t help with “one of the only” or “very unique.” Those don’t make a lot of sense.
Andréa: I see no problem with “one of my favorites” or “one of the top.” “My favorites” and “the top” in this context refer to superlative tiers. Princeton is (arguably) one of the top universities, not because I’ve rank-ordered every single university, without ties, and it came out #1, but because I’ve graded the universities into echelons, and it’s in the (single) top echelon.
I do, however, see a problem with not refreshing the page, so that you just repeat the comment above you. ;)
Winter Wallaby – Except in your case you stated it better. Yours is one of the best comments I’ve see on this use of best. :)
Thanks, TedD. You also stated it better!
I used to get upset about “one of the only.” I’m still not fond of it. But I came across something that ameliorates my pain: idioms, by their nature, do not mean what the words appear to mean. In fact, it’s part of a definition of idiom: “An expression whose meanings cannot be inferred from the meanings of the words that make it up.” That helps me put up with this and all to many other idioms which don’t say what they mean.
Arthur, I used to feel that I could care less whether an idiom was internally consistent with it’s constituent terms. But since then, I’ve done a complete 360.
Now there’s another one . . . it’s and its.
I have had to overcome the use of “lay down” versus “lie down” and others mentioned here. But worse than that, as much as I love my mother (may she Rest In Peace), I had to teach myself that there was no “R” in wash. “Go warsh your hands”.
Mark M, nor is there a ‘d’ in rouge, my mother always said, ‘roodge’.
Hi all! No one has said it… I am irked by the PBS announcement that the funding came from “people like you”, as I reply “… such as yourself.” Also irksome is confusion with past and passed.
Andréa: another one?
I have a good friend from Michigan who says ‘warsh’ and I sometimes say it myself, albeit with intention ’cause I’m thinking of her.
I don’t get worked up over accents, which I consider wash-warsh to be an example of. I used to get worked up over epenthesis (e.g. turning two-syllable athlete into three syllable ath-uh-lete). Then I realized that I and (possible all of the) sports announcers said pentath-uh-lon and decath-uh-lon. I started (even retroactively) giving people slack for such.
Andréa: “Attorney at Law” is not redundant. An “attorney” is a person appointed to act for another in business or legal matters. A “lawyer” is a person who practices law, or more specifically someone who is licensed by the state to practice law. I am not a lawyer but I am attorney-in-fact for my aged mother. A lawyer is not an attorney until he or she has a client. Lawyers call themselves “attorneys” to indicate that they have clients, because nobody wants to be the first one to hire a brand-new lawyer.
Someone should tell the cartoonist; I never knew that.
MiB, thanks for posting that. I wanted to say approximately that, but wasn’t sure enough of it.
“Gets my goat” really rubs me the wrong way….
….Kidding. :-P
Baa humbug!
I’ve heard cat or dog owners talk about grooming and brushing techniques, and quite un-selfconsciously say things like “You were rubbing her the wrong way”.
Every time I hear the phrase , “At the end of the day”, I want to scream. I don’t know why, but it just . . . irritates me.
At the end of the day, the bottom line is that we’re all on the same page. If we think outside the box, our customer-centric solution will put us in a win-win scenario, as long as we use the synergy of our value-added paradigm. We only need the low-hanging fruit because, moving forward, the 80/20 rule will knock the ball out of the park.
@ Mitch4 – Here’s a cogent solution for the “alright” disease:
Well, I certainly have some strong opinions on word usage, but I can’t get myself worked up too much about this. It’s easy enough to mistype homophones. I do it all the time (as my posts will show) and I certainly know the difference and if I bothered to proofread I’d be much less likely to do it. But, you know, I’m not going to proofread this post. I just finished rewriting an 18,000 word document a client gave us. It was not very well written when he handed it to us…
Onto my complaints.
Any qualifier used with “unique” annoys the F out of me.
Using “literally” to mean “figuratively”. But we’ve lost that battle. The clueless Millennial will just roll their eyes and “OK Boomer” you.
Using “decimate” as a synonym of “destroy”. Could it be confusion with “devastate” that started it?
Data is a plural. That train has long since left the station and won’t be coming back. All our clients use “data” as singular. If I edited the work to reflected that its plural nature, I’d just have to change it back after they complained.
No, “irregardless” is not a word. The fact that enough dumb people used it that it wound up in (some) dictionaries doesn’t mean you’re write. It means there is something wrong with the world.
“Effect” and “affect” are both great words and have distinct meanings. Why are you replacing them both with “impact”, Mr. Businessman?
It’s not a “challenge”. It’s a problem.
Accents are not fair game for criticism. But mispronunciation is. It is a fine line I walk and only I know where the right side is.
Andréa, if I cannot modify “best” because it is absolute, how would I say your comment is the second best in the thread?
Singapore Bill–yes, yes, yes!! I should of said those things. ;-)
“Any qualifier used with “unique” annoys the F out of me.”
YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I’m a grammar snob for sure, but I have no problem modifying unique.
Nothing is completely unique, e.g., none of its properties are shared by any other thing in existence. If something is “unique”, we take as a given that only some of its properties are actually unique.
So, in that case, it stands to reason that we can qualify “unique” by the relative number and importance of those of its properties that are unique. if something is unique in only a minor way, it can be said to be “somewhat unique”. If something is unique in a wide variety of different ways, it can be said to be “very unique”.
There is nothing wrong with this usage in my opinion.
Overcompensation, such as “Between you and I”.
SingaporeBill – literally used as figuratively goes back hundreds of years. Hundreds. For how long does a word need to be used before you’ll accept that definition of the word? This is one of those words that grammar snobs keep wanting to say is a lost cause but it has been used that way for a long, long time.
Irregardless has been around a long time as well. This isn’t some new corruption of the language. As much as I didn’t like the use of either of those in the ways you describe, a little research showed that to be an ill placed annoyance.
To complain that “decimate” can only mean to destroy 1/10ths of something strikes me as silly. We’re not Romans, and we’re not speaking Latin. It’s predominant meaning has been “to destroy much of something” for well over a century. One might as well complain that “pease” is a collective noun, and that people who talk about a singular “pea” are wrong.
One might as well complain that “pease” is a collective noun, and that people who talk about a singular “pea” are wrong.
Didn’t we recently go into “pease porridge hot” as illustrating “pease” as a mass [or non-count] noun?
Oh, man, the first “it’s” was intentional, but that new one was a real misteak. :(
This is literally the 2nd best thread I’ve seen here, and somewhat unique too.
Andréa – I believe that one of the difficulties that writers
of English have in choosing between “it’s” and “its” is that
people trying to teach or help explain the difference focus
on the contraction of “it is” and the resulting apostrophe,
where the apostrophe is also seen in possessives such as
“John’s boat”, and “the Smiths’ house”.
I find that relying on the parallelism of: “his, hers, its” is a simpler
mnemonic device, and seems far less likely to result in confusion.
Speaking of apostrophes, I just saw another use of the “greengrocer’s apostrophe” on a YouTube video, that promised some “Meal Idea’s”.
At a company I worked for, another company bought us and immediately laid off 10% of the employees.
I said that the acquiring company had “literally decimated” us.
A co-worker said “I really hate it when people say ‘literally’ when they mean ‘figuratively’.”
I just stared at him, astounded.
He mumbled something to the effect that you can “literally” decimate only an army, and only if you happen to be in Ancient Rome, and only if it’s every tenth person lined up at random.
Stan — as far as “alot” goes, Allie Brosh solved that problem ten years ago:
(This seems like a time to mention that, after a seven year hiatus, Brosh just published her second book, and it is every bit as hilarious, disturbing, heartbreaking, and wonderful as the rest of her work,)
https://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/04/alot-is-better-than-you-at-everything.html
Do other cultures have these discussions?
“Alot” is also one of my pet peeves, but I have seen (and enjoyed) the hyperboleandahalf take on it. “Her and I did that together” also drives me crazy, but I realize that it’s okay when you say “She read to him and I,” and not okay to say, “She read to he and I.”
“She read to him and me” is correct. “She read to him and I” is not.
Color me surprised & educated. Until now, I thought the result of decimation was that only 1/10 of the original group survived; that 90% had been done in.
Mark in Boston: Like I said earlier, I think it’s silly to insist that decimate doesn’t mean “drastically reduce.” However, if one is going to insist on the requirement of “1/10th,” I don’t see any reason that one shouldn’t also insist on the requirements of “killing” or “randomness.” e.g. from Merriam-Webster:
“1: to select by lot and kill every tenth man of”
“2: to exact a tax of 10 percent from”
“3a: to reduce drastically especially in number”
“3b: to cause great destruction or harm to”
If someone is going to insist on only using definition #1, why shouldn’t they insist on every aspect of definition #1? (And perhaps add a requirement of being in ancient Rome.)
Vice principal in my high school could not get Meryl – I was always Merle. For graduation we each had to write our name on a piece of card stock and hand it to him to read as went up. I wrote it out phonetically – still came out Merle.
Husband wrote a letter to his best friend from when he was young (best man at our wedding) using his computer. (This is before the Internet.) He handed it to me to read and tell him I want to add anything. He had used the wrong version of to or too and I told him. Rather than waste the paper for the small mistake he crossed it out and wrote in the correct word and “this is why wives are better than spell check”.
I have two points to make based on the 1913 Webster’s unabridged definition of decimate:
1. To take the tenth part of; to tithe.
2. To select by lot and punish with death every tenth man of; as, to decimate a regiment as a punishment for mutiny.
3. To destroy a considerable part of; as, to decimate an army in battle; to decimate a people by disease.
First, the first definition has nothing to do with the Romans, lot, or killing. Second, the third definition shows it’s been used without regard to a tenth for more than 100 years. As someone put it, “Etymology is not definition.”
@ Grawlix – “Do other cultures have these discussions?”
German has a concept called “Volksetymologie“, in which the derivation of a word is generally understood (by non-linguists) from a false assumption about its form or meaning. Perhaps the easiest example to explain (to non-Germans) is “Bratwurst“: most people assume that the sausage takes its name from “braten“, meaning “to fry”, but the “true” derivation comes from the root “pret” (or “bret“), referring to the finely chopped meat in the filling.
Yes, the English term “folk etymology” is exactly the same.
Actually, two usages can probably be distinguished, though still obviously related . One is what Kilby describes for the German term – folk beliefs or folklore about particular word origins or relations.
But it also is applied in linguistics for the process of new word creation or evolution when it is probably based off just such a (false) belief.
For example the coinage “monokini” [for certain kinds of one-piece swimsuit] can be called a folk etymology, or a creation of or by folk etymology. That’s because someone (actually or notionally) took “bikini” to be not the place name it actually is, but rather to have “bi-” as a sort of prefix meaning “two” and then substituting “mono-” to indicate “one”.
Ian, thanks for that link on “alot”, and introducing Allie Brosch. I wasn’t aware of her at all, but now want to see more of her writing.
Do any of you word nerds listen to the podcast “Word Matters”? Three Merriam Webster dictionary writers bring up interesting tidbits. I find it fascinating.
@ Mitch4 – The current pandemic has produced a more recent neologism: the “trikini” is a bikini+mask, all in the same fabric. (I’m not putting the image URL here in viewable form, because it will get moderated. Just click on the link.)
The current pandemic has produced a more recent neologism: the “trikini” is a bikini+mask, all in the same fabric. Unfortunately, my first attempt (with an image link) was sent to moderation, so you will have to look it up for yourself.
@powers, yup. I clearly needed sleep when I wrote that. So focused on he/him, I wasn’t thinking about me/I.
From an email I just received: “Thanks for the well wishes,[…]”
Not really a pet peeve of mine, but something I’ve been noticing, as apparently a new formation. It seems to me likely a back-formation from “well-wishers” meaning those who wish you well. But more traditionally you would say “the good wishes” , no?
Interesting. TedD scolds me and tells me I’m wrong because I look at more recent use and reject old time use when I complain about “misuse”. WW says it is ridiculous that I look to the older origins and use of words when I complain about misuse of words.
Just supports, I guess, what we see in the various comments: words and use that peeve us tend to be emotional reactions to which rationales and logic have been retro-fitted. I’ll admit that for me. Given that I used to and, now again do, make a living writing, I really don’t like anything that I feel impedes understanding or makes communication less clear. If we have words that mean “destroy” and “devastate”, why strip “decimate” of a more specific meaning? Having distinct meanings for “literally” and “figuratively” reduces the chance for confusion:
“Driving home, she knew the preparations for Thanksgiving dinner would be in full swing. The kitchen would be frantic with activities as multiple relatives all trying to get various dishes ready. Still, she was surprised to find the kitchen literally ablaze.”
So…no, I’m not giving up on that distinction. It doesn’t feel right or useful. On the other hand, I’ve been onboard singular “they/them/their” for years because sex-specific pronouns don’t ad much value and I just don’t have any emotional reaction for or against it. That’s an example where I feel reason is guiding the way with little emotion. Of course, the whole point of the comic is about emotional reactions to certain forms of language use. Grammar snob? Hardly a snob, but I do care about it. Still there are worse things than being a grammar snob. I could be the kind of person who goes around telling people their emotions are wrong.
WW let me see if I’ve got this right. You are arguing in favour of your point that those of use who lament the “destroyification” of “decimate”, wherein it becomes a simple synonym of “destroy” and “devastate” are horribly wrong. We are being prescriptivist and should loosen up and get with the times and realize that word meanings change and that we cannot be bound by dictates and usage of the past. To prove this point you are waving around a dictionary and demanding “You have to go by what somebody wrote in this book! You cannot deviate!” Did I get that right?
We accept you. One of us. :)
WW let me see if I’ve got this right. You are arguing in favour of your point that those of use who lament the “destroyification” of “decimate”, wherein it becomes a simple synonym of “destroy” and “devastate” are horribly wrong. We are being prescriptivist and should loosen up and get with the times and realize that word meanings change and that we cannot be bound by dictates and usage of the past. To prove this point you are waving around a dictionary and demanding “You have to go by what somebody wrote in this book! You cannot deviate!” Did I get that right?
We accept you. One of us. 🙂
P.S. Funny story. My fat fingers fumbled spelling my name, so off into moderation went version one of this.
The problem with “they/them/their” isn’t its gender neutrality, but its numeric ambiguity. “I heard Chris came to the party. Did they say anything to you about it?” leaves me wondering who “they” are, until I realize it’s a singular they referring to “Chris”. (Maybe!)
And before anyone says it, yes, I realize “they” has been used in the singular for a long time, but almost always with an indefinite antecedent such as “anyone” or “someone” (or even “the teacher” or other specific identifier that leaves the gender of the person unknown). The modern use to refer to a specific, named individual is rarer historically.
And before anyone says it, yes, I realize “you” is both plural and singular and we manage just fine. But had “thou” fallen out of use more recently, I would be equally in favor of restoring it to reduce ambiguity.
Dang it, stuck in moderation. We can’t go on like this.
The problem with “they/them/their” isn’t its gender neutrality, but its numeric ambiguity.
I get that, and it was my thinking for a while. But it’s a bit of a red herring. It doesn’t get that much less ambiguous if you confine t/t/t to plural:
plural they/them/their: 2 to infinity persons
singular and plural they/them/their: 1 to infinity person(s)
There are context cues:
“They don’t want to lend you their car.”
“None of them want to lend you their car.”
“They don’t want to lend you their cars.”
“I asked them if they’ll be bringing their spouse.”
“They put their lunches in the fridge.”
“They put their lunch in the fridge.”
“We liberated them during the war and now they are free.”
“We liberated them during the war and now they are free.”
That last pair is ambiguous and would need rewriting or larger context.
“The Netherlands was occupied by Germany during the World War II. We liberated them during the war and now they are free.”
“Walter De Jong was imprisoned by the Nazis during World War II. We liberated them during the war and now they are free.”
Or new rules about verbs:
“We liberated them during the war and now they is free.”
” If we have words that mean “destroy” and “devastate”, why strip “decimate” of a more specific meaning?”
Just finished a newspaper article in which is stated that COVID has ‘decimated’ our county. That would mean out of three million residents, 300,000 would have died of COVID. Luckily, that hasn’t been the case. ‘Devastate’ would have been more appropriate in this case.
Intellectually, I’m descriptivist. Emotionally, I’m prescriptivist. I understand both sides. I try to live by Postel’s law: Be conservative in what you do, be liberal in what you accept from others.
“Well-wisher” has been ruined for me by The Simpsons. As Moe put it, “I’m more of a ‘well-wisher’, in that I don’t wish you any specific harm.”
Uh.. SingaporeBill… unless I’m missing something, you were lamenting the fact that current use for literally is to convey figuratively. I don’t understand your statement about more current use. Many years ago those words were used in ways you were complaining about. Today those same words are used in that same way. Unless you are claiming in the intervening period those words were used differently, I don’t get your point. Even if they were used differently in the intervening years, you should be GLAD they are going back to original usage because, apparently, you don’t much like when people start using words in different ways.
Arthur, yes! I think I have found a credo that I can fully embrace. Am I descriptivist or prescriptivist? Yes! No! It depends!
The prescriptivist gets more of a workout, though. Corporate clients want their corporate materials to not be too edgy or modern. Unless they say they do. And then it turns out they were wrong.
@ Andréa – Even when using current population and mortality statistics (328 million vs. 206 thousand), the grim truth is that at the current rate (750 per day), that verb will be mathematically accurate before mid-March.
Singapore Bill: No, you did not get that right. With respect, that’s not even remotely close to anything I wrote.
My complaint about insisting that “decimate” must mean killing exactly 1/10th is not that it’s prescriptivist. It’s that it’s bad prescriptivism, similar to insisting that one must not end a sentence in a preposition, or cannot split an infinitive.
For well over a century, “decimate” has mostly been used to mean “destroy large amounts of.” It’s hardly ever used to mean “to kill 1/10th of,” and it’s not even clear that there ever was a time when the predominant usage was “to kill 1/10th of.” Which is quite understandable, since there would hardly ever be occasion to use such a word. Insisting on an exclusive meaning of “to kill 1/10ths of” isn’t resisting language change; it’s attempting to change language, and in a way that if successful, would just make the word obsolete.
Kilby: Hm, maybe check your math? I get a little over a century. (I’m assuming “our country” in the article is the United States, and that the “three million” in Andréa’s comment is a typo.)
WW,Andréa said the article was about her county, not her country. The 3 million, I assume, is the population of her county.
Oh, whoops, that makes more sense.
We have our own folk etymologies. For instance “butterfly”: originally “flutterby”, somehow Spoonerized over the years. (Anybody who speaks Dutch can probably see the problem here.
A couple of years ago I directed a church choir in a Christmas cantata in which the narrator explains that “Noel” comes from “Now all is well,” as in “Christ is born! Now all is well” As far as I know, that is entirely the invention of the writer of the Christmas cantata. I think it’s the worst spurious etymology I’ve ever seen.
I can’t vouch for this etymology, but it *sounds* well-researched:
I like the.idea of a film clip crediting the font!
I was referring to just Pinellas County, not the entire country. The article was in reference to keeping the mask mandate in Pinellas County.
Just today, I heard someone on NPR, of all sources, saying that someone was “reticent” to take some action. She clearly should have said “reluctant.” but I’ve heard this mistake way too often in recent years. It drives me nuts.
But I really wanted to say that I read at For those that haven’t followed some of the discussion, a group of regulars is planning to carry on with the site in one form or another.
OK, I messed that up. I wanted to ask if anyone here knows about this plan.
Boise Ed: The plans are still somewhat in flux. You can see the discussion of alternatives, and some progress towards resolution, in the Random Comments Thread. Plans are crystallizing, but I don’t feel that I can say for sure at this point exactly what has been decided, and what’s still in discussion.
Hiya Ed!
Yes, the discussion has been in the Random Comments page. Also see the post called Recent News and comments there.
Sorry about the blunder. I goofed badly with the decimal point. My result is not for 10% (that would be 32.8 million), but for 1‰ (meaning 0.1%, or 328K).
@BoiseEd: maybe contamination from Québec? In French, “réticent”=reluctant.
Just as a reminder to anyone who might not yet know:
1) Please see the “Recent News” thread for information about the recent death of Bill Bickel. Unfortunately, it is not (currently) possible for new participants to place (unmoderated) condolences there, but the opening paragraph contains a link to Bill’s obituary page, which is open to new participants.
2) For information about the future of CIDU, please refer to “Random Comments“, including links to various chat forums and test setups. You can skip quickly to the last page by clinking on the “NNN Comments” link in the header table.
Kilby: I can release comments in the “Recent News” thread from moderation, although there may be a fair amount of latency in the release time.
“someone was ‘reticent’ to take some action.”
“He’s taking action, folks, but he won’t tell us why!”
Well, that was wrong . . . here’s what it was SUPPOSED to be . . .
American kids are so intelligent! Kids anywhere else wouldn’t get more than 37.
So I guess even my misteak leads to funny comments. I won’t request my misteaken post be removed, just ’cause Olivier made the best possible reply.
I turned 75 a few days ago, and have been responding to correspondents who noted the fact by musing that back in high school, “75” was usually the bare minimum passing score, so I can now claim to have finally cinched a “D-Minus” grade on my own life.
(I guess that means I won’t be held back and have to repeat it all over again next turn of the Wheel?)
Lesson Grade (%) Letter Equivalent Rating
90-100 A Excellent
80-89 B Good
70-79 C Average
65-69 D Passing
Below 65 F
Continued from above:
Below 65 F Failing
I meant to write: How things have changed; the bar has been lowered. Today, you [and I] would be average.
Hey 98.6!
Just remember, D’s get diplomas.
That’s great, Olivier. What other goods do you have to cels us?
MiB, or as my friend used to say, “You know what they call the guy who graduates last in med school? Doctor”
“The world is run by C students” . . . with my addendum: ‘If we’re lucky.”
Well, I just heard Former FLOTUS Michelle Obama use ‘decimate’ incorrectly, so I guess it’s generally accepted not to mean ‘every ten’.
I think we’ve established that a meaning outside of “one in ten” is not incorrect and hasn’t been for a long time.
I’m less interested in relitigating the correct usage of ‘decimate’ than I am intrigued by the idea that Michelle Obama is our standard for what’s “generally accepted.”
Actually, I was being sarcastic to that point.
Just ran across this passage in a Chicago NPR newsletter:
The news comes as the city’s finances have been decimated by the pandemic, resulting in a $800 million deficit in this year’s budget and a $1.2 billion shortfall in next year’s budget. Lightfoot is expected later this month to unveil her plan for closing the budget gap, and she has not ruled out rising property taxes and laying off city workers.
Andréa, if Michelle Obama isn’t going to be our standard, then who is?
make up your mind; either she is, or she isn’t.
Still beats “one of the only.” (And I suspect the McDonald’s burger company might at least try to argue about “most recognizable.”)
Yep. I argued earlier that “one of the best (or most)” was fine (unlike “one of the only”). So I would find the xkcd example annoying as unnecessary hedging, rather than grammatically wrong.
When I was a kid, there was a McDonalds on a boat in the Mississippi river by the Gateway Arch. Image search shows that it didn’t itself have large arches, though.
Whoever designed that arch was a very bad croquet player.
Same source, next day.
“Even before the pandemic decimated the city’s budget, Chicago faced huge financial challenges. “
So I guess it’s official: our budget will be 90% of what it was previously set at?
Even better than “one of the” is “arguably”.
“Arguably” is a word that literally means “not”.
“The Gateway Arch is arguably the most recognizable landmark in the United States.”
MiB, I agree that that’s what the word appears it should mean. But my handy dictionary says it actually means, “As can be shown by argument”.
Merriam-Webster says, in part:
“Used to say that a statement is very possibly true even if it is not certainly true.”
That being said, I’d guess the Washington Monument or Mount Rushmore would be the most recognizable, but the Gateway Arch would be right up there. As far as its shape, it’s a type of caternary curve.
I’d go for the ‘Statue de la Liberté’.
@ Brian in StL – Almost: it’s a catenary (only one R) curve, the same shape (but in the opposite direction) as a rope or chain hung from two supports.
I had looked up the spelling but somehow failed to get it in the message correctly.