Mea Culpa: D-words for destruction
Questions of style and usage in last week’s Independent, reviewed by John Rentoul
We asked this question in a headline last week: “Will the omicron variant further decimate the job market?” I can see why the writer reached for a more dramatic word than “disrupt” and didn’t want to reach as far as “destroy”, instead settling on another D-word that is unfortunately on the Banned List.
It is on the List because decimate originally meant to cut by one-tenth, so it triggers a particular kind of pedant who starts to mutter about a Roman army punishment in which every tenth soldier in a mutinous unit was put to death.
The simplest solution is never to use it, and to use a word such as “devastate” instead, which may imply less total ruin than “destroy”.
Subscribe to Independent Premium to bookmark this article
Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Premium subscription today.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies