We should not take lightly the corruption of "decimate"

Decimation was originally a punishment meted out to mutinous legions in the Roman army. Everyone was lined up and they counted off by tens. Then every number (e.g.) three was taken out and shot. Well, OK, they didn't shoot them but the effect was the same, they came out of the experience dead. But, Note! Everyone else was scattered about amongst other legions, so the legion that was decimated had no one left in it. Generalizing the definition of decimation to include other effects than just a simple reduction in number by 1/10th seems to me a minor thing to quibble about.

Better we should save our energies for whinging about such travesties as referring to naprons as aprons or requiring that money change hands for the word sell to be used