![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Shakespeare would hate you
Oct. 2nd, 2011 10:26 amOK, for the LAST FRIGGIN' TIME, if one more person feels the need to educate the rest of us on the "correct" usage of 'decimate' I am seriously going to consider the possibility of letter bombs.
The more general definition of the word has been in common usage for HUNDREDS OF YEARS. Language evolves, you lemmings. If we're only allowed to use words that have kept to their original meaning or only the meaning of their root components we are in a BOATLOAD OF TROUBLE.
Newsflash: even intelligent people can be taken in. I've actually noticed that many people I consider to be intelligent are susceptible to a suggestion that they're using language incorrectly. And while this problem certainly existed before the internet (my parents pulled this crap on me), it really hasn't helped things. PLEASE stop letting word of mouth substitute for ACTUAL ETYMOLOGY.
This post brought to you by Jim Butcher's Ghost Story, Max Brooks' World War Z, too many other contemporary works of fiction, and the internet. PLEASE STOP.
The more general definition of the word has been in common usage for HUNDREDS OF YEARS. Language evolves, you lemmings. If we're only allowed to use words that have kept to their original meaning or only the meaning of their root components we are in a BOATLOAD OF TROUBLE.
Newsflash: even intelligent people can be taken in. I've actually noticed that many people I consider to be intelligent are susceptible to a suggestion that they're using language incorrectly. And while this problem certainly existed before the internet (my parents pulled this crap on me), it really hasn't helped things. PLEASE stop letting word of mouth substitute for ACTUAL ETYMOLOGY.
This post brought to you by Jim Butcher's Ghost Story, Max Brooks' World War Z, too many other contemporary works of fiction, and the internet. PLEASE STOP.
