We understood that to “decimate” meant to kill one in 10

Posted on July 29, 2017 by adrianstenton

This is a quotation from a new book, The Beast, by Alexander Starritt, due out on 7 September, and previewed in today’s Guardian by Ian Jack, about a fictionalised sub-editor on the Daily Mail. It might make entertaining reading!

The Beast by Alexander Starritt

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About adrianstenton

Adrian Stenton is a PhD candidate at Leiden University Centre for Linguistics and is currently investigating number concord in the species noun phrase. Adrian is part of the project Bridging the Unbridgeable: linguists, prescriptivists and the general public, which is supervised by Prof Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade.
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1 Response to We understood that to “decimate” meant to kill one in 10

  1. Ingrid Tieken's avatar Ingrid Tieken says:
    August 1, 2017 at 9:31 am

    And it is one of the usage problems dealt with in the HUGE database.

    Reply

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