English, especially American English, is constantly changing.
President Trump and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth have repeatedly claimed that the U.S. military has “decimated” the forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Their use of the word “decimated” is accepted English today. The Merriam-Webster dictionary gives several definitions of decimate. Two are “To reduce drastically especially in number” and “To cause great destruction or harm to.”
However, Merriam-Webster also includes the historical definition of the word – “To select by lot and kill every tenth member.”
The Roman army used decimation to maintain strict discipline among soldiers guilty of severe offenses such as cowardice, mutiny, desertion or insubordination. Instead of killing individuals it would kill 10% of the entire cohort (about 480 men, compared to today’s military battalion) or legion (consisting of 4,500 to 5,200 men – 10 cohorts). Soldiers were divided into groups of 10 soldiers and lots would be drawn to select one. His comrades would then kill the unlucky soldier, typically by clubbing, stoning or stabbing.
The fear of decimation created a strong sense of mutual responsibility among soldiers because their survival could depend on the actions of their comrades. Even today, drill instructors in boot camps will punish their entire company instead of an offender who, oh, didn’t make his rack (bed) correctly or overslept in the morning, to emphasize teamwork, although their punishment is usually having everybody give him 50 push-ups.
Decimation was rare in the Roman army, but needless to say, soldiers were very wary.
So, using the different meanings of decimation, has the American military killed 10% of Iranian fighters or a far higher number? It is difficult to say, considering the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps continues to close the Strait of Hormuz and has been launching missiles and drones in nations throughout the region.
So many word meanings have changed of late.
Today GOAT means the greatest of all time – Tom Brady, Messi, Muhammad Ali and the like. But at West Point, goat means the cadet who finishes last in his graduating class. The most famous West Point goat was George Armstrong Custer, who advanced to the rank of major general and won a Medal of Honor during the Civil War but later earned the name goat once again when he and his troops were slaughtered at the Battle of Little Bighorn.
Interestingly, each year’s West Point goat earns wild applause when his or her name is announced at graduation. Many cadets drop out or are thrown out of West Point, so the goat’s classmates recognize that cadet’s perseverance. In fact, classmates all throw a dollar into a bag for the goat, adding up to approximately $1,000.
One word change drives me crazy – with people saying “chomp at the bit” instead of the original phrase, “champ at the bit.”
Here’s what Grammerist.com says about that issue:
“The original, and proper, use of the term is champing at the bit, and it also is surprisingly more widely used (especially in Britain) even through chomping at the bit may seem more familiar to the majority of our readers. Regardless, both are acceptable to use even if one is more technically correct. If you have been concerned about using it incorrectly, have no fear, you are fine either way – unless you are a stickler for proper word usage related to original idiom.”
One has to take slang into account. The best example I have of that is the word “bad.” It originally had one meaning; bad meant bad such as a crappy movie or a misbehaving child. But over the years, thanks to slang, bad became good, even great, such as a bad (ass) singer or a bad sports performance.
I thought that transformation took place in the 1970s; I was wrong. Research showed the “good” meaning of bad started in the 1890s and became more entrenched in the 1930s, when jazz musicians used the word bad to describe an incredibly talented, impressive or intense performance.
Other words such as “sick” and, in Boston, “wicked” have experienced similar word reversals.
English is the most spoken language in the world. Yes, Mandarin Chinese is the most spoken native language on the globe, with about 941 million speakers. English, though, has about 1.5 billion speakers, both native and second-language speakers, thanks to former British colonies such as India and Kenya.
American English is the mutt of the language world, thanks to immigration over the centuries.
Germans provided the highest number of immigrants other than the British in the days of the American colonies. In fact, Ben Franklin worried that British subjects would soon become outnumbered by Germans in Pennsylvania, thanks to groups such as the Amish and Mennonites escaping religious persecution in Europe.
Another wave of German immigrants, some 5 million, followed from the 1830s through the 1880s with cities such as Milwaukee, St. Louis, Cincinnati and New York hosting dense German-speaking populations while German farmers spread out over the Midwest.
So it isn’t surprising more Americans have a German ancestry than even English, Irish, Italian and Mexican. Again, it isn’t surprising that, according to some sources, there are some 30,000 German words that have been incorporated into American English, helped by the fact that English is part of the Germanic language group instead of the Romance language group. Let’s look at just a handful:
Hamster, rottweiler, schnauzer to start. Getting away from animals, there’s hamburger, lager, schnapps, fest, kindergarten, poltergeist, waltz, wanderlust, rucksack, automat, blitz, diesel, zeppelin and so many others.
However, the Romance language group has also had its influences.
There are Italian words. God bless Italian food, and there are at least 22 Italian words that define it, such as pasta, pizza, spaghetti, ravioli, gnocchi and lasagna. As for music, we have opera, solo, aria, crescendo, soprano, virtuoso, diva, ballerina and many more. Some Italian words have become so integrated into English that we forget their origins – umbrella, bank, volcano, influenza, malaria, casino and vendetta are just a few.
How about the Irish, another large immigrant group? Let’s try these words: bog, banshee, brat, galore, gob, hooligan, kibosh, limerick, shillelagh and, yes, whiskey.
Let’s try Spanish. Words such as bodega, cafeteria, embargo, fiesta, incognito, lasso, patio, plaza, renegade, vigilante, cigar, aficionado, armada and so many more have made their way into English. Eight states have Spanish names: Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico and Texas.
America is a melting pot, and so is American English.
