Re: Types of numerals
| From: | Paul Bennett <paul-bennett@...> |
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| Date: | Sunday, January 8, 2006, 19:52 |
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On Sun, 08 Jan 2006 14:21:48 -0500, Nomad of Norad -- David C Hall
<nomad-conlang@...> wrote:
> Hi Thomas (Thomas Hart Chappell), in
>> "To decimate smthng" means "to reduce smthng by removing one-tenth of
>> it".
>
> Interesting. The way I've always seen it used, "decimate" = "destroy,
> obliterate"
That's the *ahem* descriptivist meaning. The folk-etymology seems have
been "to reduce to one tenth", which was then reinterpreted as "to reduce
by ten tenths", or something.
However, the meaning in the dictionary is indeed "to reduce *by* one
tenth". It's related to ancient Greek military practices, as far as I
recall. Putting one tenth of captured troops to death, or some such
activity.
There's also the meaning found in digital video processing, where "to
decimate something by N" means to drop every Nth frame from something.
Paul
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