I used to subscribe to the pedantry that using "decimated" (from the historical punishment of killing every tenth member of a regiment by lot) as a synonym for "devastated" or "destroyed" is inaccurate, since a decimated regiment is still at 90% strength. It wasn't until recently that I stopped to think about the material and psychological effects of having 10% of a group killed randomly — not just the numerical loss, which is significant though a minority, but the manner of it. Not only was the killing done randomly by lot as group punishment, but the condemned were killed *by their own cohort*. The haunting knowledge that it could have been you, the experience of having killed your comrades with your own hands, and having that kind of coercive power exercised over you would likely change a person forever. Per Wikipedia, this was a rare practice with 11 recorded instances, with the historicity of some records being questionable and the whole practice likely a rhetorical myth more than anything. It would have been illegal by second century BC as the powers of military magistrates over citizen soldiers were curtailed. And you know it was extreme if it was too extreme for Romans to do it regularly. So yeah, I'm in favor of using "decimate" as a synonym for devastation, destruction, and the rest. Given its other associations, maybe it should take on other connotations as well, of cruelty so extreme it's mythical and impractical, of illegitimate uses of power, and the kind of control no one should have. #etymology #history #AncientRome