Your Grammar Nazi

I don't know whether to be happy or devastated that one of my favorite blogs has handed me an opportunity to lambaste them over the misuse of "decimate."

 

Think Progress:

There’s a chance that the storm will hit New Orleans nearly seven years to the day that Hurricane Katrina decimated the city.

"Decimate" means "take away one tenth." If Katrina had destroyed one-tenth of New Orleans, the use of "decimate" would be correct.

But it's not correct. Katrina - or rather the levee breach in the hurricane's wake - physically destroyed more than 10 percent of the city physically, and far more than 10 percent of the city psychologically and culturally. New Orleans has lost more than half of its pre-Katrina population.

That's not "decimination."  That's "devastation." That's "destruction." Get it right.