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OT: World Politics




The original meaning of the term “decimate” wasn’t “reduce to 1/10th”. It was reduce BY 1/10th.

It comes from a form of punishment that was meted out to Roman legions for cowardice, mutiny or disgrace, where soldiers would be divided into groups of ten, made to draw lots and the “loser” in each group would be beaten to death by his colleagues.

[/grammar & history nerding]
 
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