Smitty Two wrote:

In article ,
Jim Elbrecht wrote:

On Sun, 09 Mar 2008 23:45:55 -0700, Smitty Two
wrote:

In article
,
Steve wrote:

These dunk buckets work until the
herd either wises up (hasn't happened yet) or decimates (yes!)...

Decimate: Kill every tenth one. IME, less than satisfactory results.

If you're in 16th century Rome you'd only kill 10%. In 21st Century
America you're wiping the buggers out.

I guess that's one of my objections to 21st century America. We're so
illiterate that words don't mean what they mean anymore. All you have to
do is look at the root of "decimate" to understand its etymology and
thence its meaning. What's next? "Halve" means cut into a thousand
pieces?

It has been understood by English speakers to mean wipe out since at
least the 18th century or so.

In an intelligent society the meanings of words evolve--- when is the
last time you dialed a phone? BTW - does that phone ring?

Jim