This post has nothing to do with Santa Cruz but, lacking a more general history blog, I'm choosing to digress today and write about a word - "decimate" - which has long been a pet peeve because of what I had always perceived to be the loss of its historical meaning, and its egregious misuse in modern English. A bit of study has, however, altered my perspective somewhat.
Altered perspectives seem to be a hazard inherent in blogging, and to any other form of writing. proclamations and manifestos may come later, but the process of converting half-formed ideas and opinions into written words without the need to produce a finished product allows the writer to take a closer look at "what lies beneath" (to borrow a convenient movie title). After writing a sentence, I often have to stop and ask myself "Where did that come from? Is it true?" The ensuing journey of discovery is usually both enlightening and entertaining (yes, I'm easily amused).
Decimate - the word conjures up visions of horrendous slaughter - one dictionary's #1 definition is: "kill, destroy, or remove a large percentage or part of". But why the prefix "deci", which denotes "one tenth"? As is often the case with the English language, answers are not simple. Two different historical streams provide some perspective.
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| Decimation, by William Hogarth (1725) |
"A cohort (roughly 480 soldiers) selected for punishment by decimation was divided into groups of ten; each group drew lots (sortition), and the soldier on whom the lot fell was executed by his nine comrades, often by stoning or clubbing."But hold on - this article claims that: "Unfortunately for the etymological purists, decimate comes from the Medieval Latin word decimatus, which means ‘to tithe’. The word was then assigned retrospectively to the Roman practice of punishing every tenth soldier."
Does this prove the "etymological purists" wrong? Not exactly - the OED blogger is speaking only about the etymology of the English word. A historical perspective going back to pre-English times yields a more expansive view.
In Latin, the Roman military practice was called "decimatio", and use of the term goes back several hundred years before Christ. The literal meaning of the word is "reduce by one tenth". There were other words referring to variant forms of the practice, involving different levels of "reduction". For instance, "centimatio" meant "reduce by one hundredth".
As the OED blogger notes, it was not until "medieval Latin" that the word was applied to the religious practice of "tithing" - that is, giving a tenth of one's income to one's religious institution of choice. So the English word "decimate" may have been "assigned retrospectively" to the Roman practice, but the Latin word meant a particular military punishment long before the Middle Ages.
An even longer historical view can be applied to the other "original" meaning. The concept of "tithing" was adopted by early Christianity, but the practice originated in the Hebrew religion (with a Hebrew noun to name it), predating both Christianity and ancient Rome by hundreds of years (at least).
As a side note, and as one who grew up in a church that preached (but whose members rarely practiced) tithing, it's interesting to note that the literal meaning of "decimate" is the negative "reduce by one tenth". Preachers, on the other hand, usually tried to sell the concept in a positive way - as "giving" (never as decimation).
More progressive theologians (supported by the teachings of Jesus himself) advocate "Christian charity". For some, part of the rationale is that a loving God will see your generosity and reward it, so that in the end your prosperity will be greater than if you had kept that last tenth. While I no longer believe that's literally true, I do believe that financial generosity is a product of spiritual generosity, which is its own reward.
Enough digression - back to pedantry - during the long evolution of English, the modern word "decimate" has lost both original meanings. Adding insult to etymological injury, the "deci" prefix has lost any meaning at all. Historical novelists, who should know better, are among the worst modern offenders. I read a lot of historical fiction, and am constantly confronted with this abuse of a good word by the very writers who should be protecting it.
Finally, I suppose we shouldn't be surprised that the word's meaning has evolved into something completely different from either of its original meanings - that's not exactly unprecedented, is it? The same thing has happened to many words, even over relatively short spans of years. Can anyone today listen to the theme song from the '60s animated TV show, The Flintstones, and not react when it gets to the last line: "...we'll have a gay old time!"
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