Misused Words

Maybe it's because I'm a picky English student, but when I hear people using big words improperly, I just cringe. Maybe it stems from many years ago when my sister used to use "simultaneously" to mean "immediately." Maybe she's going to hunt me down and kill me like a dog for telling that.

Decimate: Most people seem to think that decimation is one step short of utter destruction. It's not. Decimate is an old Roman concept. If a legion, or part of one, needed heavy discipline, one option for a legion commander was to order the offending group of soldiers decimated. This involved lining up the legionnaires, picking out every tenth man, and summarily executing them. Not a terribly pleasant practice, but by Roman standards, on the mild side. These are the people that invented crucifixion, and had almost as many verbs meaning to kill as we do. From their point of view, not only was decimation a good discipline, but it also left the decimated military unit only down ten percent in fighting strength.
I'm experiencing some ambivalence here. On the one hand, decimate is a great word. On the other, so many people misuse it that you can't really use it properly and hope to be understood. So that drops it into the Bad column.

Penultimate: This one isn't so common. But when this word is used, it's most often used to mean "more than ultimate." The apparent logic is that if ultimate is big, then penultimate must be bigger. This of course ignores the fact that "ultimate" is final, last, and in generally, ultimate. There's nothing past ultimate. It's rather like people saying something is "somewhat unique" but that's another topic. Penultimate merely means "next to last." So it's not such a big deal after all. Not really worth getting excited about at all. And not a terribly useful word when used properly. I think it's rather Ugly.

Despise: This is a word that I could use a lot more if everyone used it properly. But if people used it properly, it wouldn't be here, would it? Despise is generally taken to mean hate strongly. Detest would be a better choice, because despise doesn't have anything to do with hating. It's about value. If you despise something, you basically count it as worthless or very insignificant. I can despise your opinion. One can despise an opponent's athletic ability. But it has nothing to do with hate. It's actually more insulting that way. The next time someone tosses out the word despise, toss back something along the line of "I despise your vocabulary and your intelligence." The confused reaction you're likely to get will just prove your point. In case you had not guessed, despise is Good.