Misuse of words – driving me crackers!

Decimate – it means to kill one in ten. It does not mean to run things down or to cut funding!

If I see one more person say – the Tories are decimating the NHS / social care I will run amok with a copy of the OED ( yes I have a copy of the shorter OED – it weighs a good few kilos. It will hurt when I hit you with it)

You have been warned!

What misused words bug you?

Quite/rather/very unique….no no no!!!

Guilty as charged too

🤦

*adds people saying that to the list*

under-estimate/over-estimate; under-state/over-state are the ones which irritate the life out of me.
Rarely used correctly.

Driving me crackers.

It really boils my piss.

Lots. But I try to not let it bother me – there are other, far more important issues to be concerned about than slack grammar.

theory when they mean hypothesis;

brought rather than bought;

weight isn’t measured in kg;

Could you be more pacific?

Hypothetical Vs postulated…

October: the tenth month when it means the eighth
December: the twelfth month when it means the tenth
Octave: there are only seven distinct notes in an octave
FFS, makes me SO angry…

Decimate – it means to kill one in ten. It does not mean to run things down or to cut funding!

I’m pretty sure it can mean either.
Whilst I acknowledge my grammar is not perfect; I find it hard at times to not think less of the opinions of someone with poor grammar.

Ps I hate the use of regular to mean frequent, although it’s become so common as to have become possibly correct (grrr).

Black headed gulls have brown heads
Black backed gulls have black wings not backs
Herring gulls do not eat herring
Common gulls are actually quite rare
and there is no such bird as a seagull

*and breathe*

I’m pretty sure it can mean either.

NOpe. it may be wrongly used for either but it means kill one in ten. precise meaning.

Decimate – it means to kill one in ten. It does not mean to run things down or to cut funding!

It meant that half a millennium ago perhaps. Its modern usage has been in, uh, modern usage for a very long time now. Whilst I’m generally a card-carrying words pedant, language evolves and this isn’t a battle I’d pick.

Literally.

What Cougar says, time to update your meaning on decimate

“My bad”

Your bad what….use of the word bad as a noun!?

Less/fewer

Envious/jealous

Both battles I feel I have lost, even the BBC do it.

If I see one more person say – the Tories are decimating the NHS / social care I will run amok with a copy of the OED

And kill one in ten of the people you meet. By throwing the book at them.

Use of myself and yourself instead of me and you. It’s not even particularly wrong in the context of language evolution but yourself does it to seem more intelligent and it sends myself up the wall. Figuratively, of course.

And while we are at it bring back thee and thou. YOu being used for plural and singular causes huge confusion

Amen!!

‘should of’

Grr.

Black headed gulls have brown heads

Well – the same as ‘Black’ and ‘White’ as used to describe skin colour really

Some of that is just the depths of time we’ve been using names for. Our naming of colour in language has shifted over time and the distinctions between colours has moved. Any of the things in nature we tend to call red – red deer, red squirrels, red hair, red sky at night and are all things we’d now call orange. But ‘orange’ is a relatively new name for colour and at one time everything we now call orange would have been part of what we would then think of as red. In other languages there no distinction between blue and green. Presumably dark brown has at a point in our history sat within our definition of ‘black’.

I don’t care – they should properly be called “brown headed for part of the year gulls” Lets get these important things right!

weight isn’t measured in kg;

Its not but weight is a function of mass and the effect of gravity which is a constant (ish) therefore theres no real need to get you knickers in a twist when the general population interchange the two.

TJ i think you need to let it go, you’ve probably used paraphanalia numerous times and you’re unlikely to have used it correctly ever. Things change.

There’s a certain irony to using a ‘forum’ for this complaint – a word, that much like decimate, had a singular meaning in Latin but has multiple uses in English.

I will run amok with a copy of the OED

Its useful to know what a dictionary is before making that kind of threat. In this context they proper use of a dictionary would require the use of a pencil so you can update your copy. Dictionaries record the use of language they don’t dictate it.

‘Black’ and ‘White’ as used to describe skin colour really

they should properly be called “brown headed for part of the year gulls”

They all fall under ‘Annoying squawky shit on my car bastards’ whatever colour their heads/wings/backs are.

JoshVegas – every day is a school day. Thank you. Now I will use it correctly having checked in my big book of words

🙂

I know I’m going to regret this, but….

From my 1992 Pocket Oxford Dictionary:

Decimate:
1.destroy a large proportion of.
2. orig. Rom. Hist. kill or remove one in ten of.

I think that as Roman legions no longer roam the planet the word decimate has had to evolve into it’s currently accepted meaning or go the same way as the Romans . Everyone knows what it means these days so it is an effective means of communication which is what it’s all about . “Hence why” and the misuse of literally mildly irritate me . Everyone currently ending their conversation with stay safe is also starting to irritate me.i suppose a lot of us currently have too much time on our hands and are a little more irritable than usual .

And while we are at it bring back thee and thou.

Bringing back Yay and Nay would be helpful – there are some question you can’t answer with Yes or No. One the OP has probably been asked frequently would be:

“You’re not going out dressed like that are you?”

Herring gulls are called that because of their colour not diet.

One the OP has probably been asked frequently would be:

“You’re not going out dressed like that are you?”

To be fair, even the best among us make those sorts of mistakes after a few drinks.

brought rather than bought;

This really irritates me along with the following:

I could care less,
Should of,
Myself or yourself instead of me or you.

Seagulls is a great word and shorter than annoying, noisy feathery bastards. Yoda is correct in his seagull assumption.

See what happens when tj has too much time on his hands!

An amusing one from work yesterday, as we have moved 20,000 staff to home working, we have received a number of requests for ” assertive technology” 😄

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/decimate

The OED is paywalled but the Google results from “Oxford”:

decimate
/ˈdɛsɪmeɪt/
Learn to pronounce
verb
1.
kill, destroy, or remove a large proportion of.
“the inhabitants of the country had been decimated”
2.
HISTORICAL
kill one in every ten of (a group of people, originally a mutinous Roman legion) as a punishment for the whole group.
“the man who is to determine whether it be necessary to decimate a large body of mutineers”

Its seagul isn’t it?

And they’re not even sea birds are they?

TJ its a good one isn’t it? Learnt that from a 1905ish dictionary wish i had got it ftom my Granddads house before it was cleared. The difference a century makes to word usage was quite pronounced.