Today's LA Times has story about DirectTV zapping illegal cards used to steal their programs. Calls the crooks "bootleggers". I'm trying to picture the thieves walking around with a satellite dish, even a small one, inside a knee length boot. Must be awkward, and would be equivalent of house arrest, unless they have very long lead-in cable. One of my other pet peeves is using "decimate" to mean nine tenths destruction.

The house-arrest anklets don't have wires attached.
I take your point, though. I thought bootleggers originally applied to people who made or sold liquor illegally.

We've had a long thread on decimate, if you want to Search for it. You'll find you're not alone!

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EDITED IN LATER


http://wordsmith.org/board/showthreaded.pl?Cat=&Board=miscellany&Number=1344

By all means, see http://www.bartleby.com/64/C003/091.html

I agree with you, of course.