I remember the first time I heard the word decimate used to mean “lots of a population killed/destroyed.” A newscaster in the 1990s was saying a salmon population had been decimated. I thought, oh shit. 10% gone. That’s bad. Then I found out he’d meant almost all of them had been killed, and I was extra confused. Until then, I’d only known it as the egregious Roman military punishment where a squad of ten soldiers had to kill one of their own. #syntax #LoadedWords #decimate #Latin #WordOrigin