Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Word Origins 120. The word origin today is to
decimate. Okay. Let's take a look at the note here. The most common meaning today
of decimate, decimate is to significantly take away, lose or destroy
something. Ironically, it can have both the meanings
of destroying or losing only 10% or it can have the meaning of significantly
losing up to 90% or even more. Okay. Let's continue. The origin of this word comes
from decimatus. Okay. Which is the Latin past participle of decimare.
In Latin, this means the destruction, the destruction of 1/10 which came from the
root of decem meaning 10. Yeah. Yeah. I studied Latin, so and I also did a word
origin before where I gave you the origin of the meanings of the months.
Remember, the original Roman calendar only had ten months and we have in like
seven, eight, nine, ten in Latin is septum, octo, novem, decem and you know, you can
pretty much figure out that's what we got September, October, November , December
from. Okay. But anyway, so decem actually meant ten.
So that's where it really came from. According to records, the Romans were
very serious about punishing mutiny. Remember mutiny that's when soldiers
rebel against their leaders. You know, we hear probably more often on ships you
know , because sometimes the sailors think that the captain is crazy and it's going to
kill them all. So sometimes they'll do ' a mutiny to take over a captain. But that's
what we mean by mutiny. They were very serious in the Roman army, they wanted to
make sure nobody did this. So I think there was a couple of times they had some
small mutinies and so this is the punishment that they gave out.
All right. Let's continue here. Yeah. So in order to make sure they that this
didn't happen. That the mutiny didn't happen. They executed one man of every
ten within the army. So I guess when it did happen that's what they did. So they
actually killed their own soldiers. You know, as a punishment to make sure that
they wouldn't think of doing this. This was done by drawing lots. You know. So it
was a way of choosing well who had to die. And the other soldiers had to
perform the killings. So you might have even had to kill somebody you know, that
was in the same army as you. Maybe somebody who you even knew as a friend. I
don't know. That's the original meaning was only
supposed to mean one out of every ten of the destruction or the removal. Okay.
However, over time it turned into a very large amount and often considered to be
90% or more. That's why people that are very you know, serious or somebody that
says stickler about the the original meaning. Sometimes they're upset if
people use it for the large amount because in the etymology you know, the
origin of where it started it should really only meant one-tenth. But the far
majority of time I hear it used today, it really means a large number and I
thought I guess people started to realize that the' deci' had to do with
ten and they thought it has to be a large numbe. They, they probably thought
10% was too small. So it must mean like closer to 90%. So that's the way it's
used a lot today. It's used more often that way today than the opposite way. But
the original meaning was really just 1/10. Okay. And we have several examples
here. The first one is for the 1/10 because this was the historical use of
it. The Roman army decimated their own troops for mutiny. So in this case they
killed off one tenth of them. So a lot of times it is to do with killing off.
All right. Number two here. This is the way I often hear it used today. That stock
price was decimated. It used to be valued at over $100 you
know 100 US dollars per share and it is now fallen to below $10. So that would be
like over 90%. This is one of the most common ways I hear the word decimated
used today. And of course let's give you a third one.
The tornado decimated the houses in that small town. Only a few were left standing.
So maybe again, it destroyed a very high number of them.
Probably in the area of 80-90 percent or more. So that's the way we more commonly
hear the word decimated used today. Okay. Anyway I hope you got it. I hope it's
clear. I hope it was informative and interesting. Thank you for your time.
Bye-bye.