Ever wish you hadn't mentioned something? Sheesh.



Nigel, this isn't me saying this, but decimate has been used since time immemorial to mean to lay waste to, to severely damage, to annihilate or to devastate, without particular reference to one-in-ten. It's also been used in the one-in-ten punishment sense. Neither attracts comment in my experience, either by horny-handed sons of toil down the allotments or by anyone else.

How about "poor farming practices have decimated the songbird population in the last fifty years?" Are your eyebrows raised? It's what people say, Nigel, and any lingusitics guru worth his or her salt will tell you that that's all that matters. King Canutes like you and akenaton can't stop the language evolving, and I'll drink to that. Perhaps a small glass of Mount Gay rum.

And Keith, I don't care how you interpret my remarks. I'm not even reading your exceptionally tedious and repetitive posts much at all these days.