Five weeks ago Tice was leader of Reform UK and it was nowhere in the polls. Five weeks is an eternity in politics!

Quote from: DecemDave on 05 July 2024, 11:06:33 AMwell. no additional ones maybe?  we already have some who rule nit-pick, disparage others choice of scales or models, point out that my carefully painted 197th line had changed their cuff colour the year before etc or otherwise disagree with my own humble but clearly correct opinions. 

I will never forget the look of horror when someone asked which regiments my Napoleonics figures were and I answered, those ones are French and those ones are British. Perfectly accurate answer but it someone offended his sensibilities. Oh well, not my period.

I never fail to be impressed by the speed at which the transfer of power happens at these times.

And, I have just heard the ITN news anchor describe the SNP as being decimated as they lose 4/5 of their MPs. I do not think she understands what "decimated" means.

Quote from: Genom on 05 July 2024, 04:54:34 PMI will never forget the look of horror when someone asked which regiments my Napoleonics figures were and I answered, those ones are French and those ones are British. Perfectly accurate answer but it someone offended his sensibilities. Oh well, not my period.

 

Quote from: Raider4 on 05 July 2024, 08:13:10 PMI never fail to be impressed by the speed at which the transfer of power happens at these times.

And, I have just heard the ITN news anchor describe the SNP as being decimated as they lose 4/5 of their MPs. I do not think she understands what "decimated" means.

Send that in to Private Eye and you'll get £10 if they publish it     

QuoteAnd, I have just heard the ITN news anchor describe the SNP as being decimated as they lose 4/5 of their MPs. I do not think she understands what "decimated" means.

I imagine the SNP would have been delighted to merely be decimated.

Quote from: Ithoriel on 05 July 2024, 08:59:20 PMI imagine the SNP would have been delighted to merely be decimated.

  

"What have the Romans ever done for us?"

Quote from: Raider4 on 05 July 2024, 08:13:10 PMI never fail to be impressed by the speed at which the transfer of power happens at these times.

And, I have just heard the ITN news anchor describe the SNP as being decimated as they lose 4/5 of their MPs. I do not think she understands what "decimated" means.

That is 700% worse than decimation! She needs help NOW.

QuoteAnd, I have just heard the ITN news anchor describe the SNP as being decimated as they lose 4/5 of their MPs. I do not think she understands what "decimated" means.

Yes she does. The word has been what linguists call 'skunked'. That is when a word changes meaning. You use skunked words all the time.

Though I do dislike the misuse/skunking of "literally".

I watch a lot of US-based space launches, and they use the phrase
"<thing> is nominal", meaning "within normal parameters" all the time.

My brain, of course, translates it automatically as "in name only". 

QuoteThat is 700% worse than decimation! She needs help NOW.

The trap of the pedant.

decimate
UK /ˈdɛsɪmeɪt/
verb (with object)

1.
kill, destroy, or remove a large proportion of
the inhabitants of the country had been decimated
▪
drastically reduce the strength or effectiveness of (something)
public transport has been decimated

2.
(historical)
kill one in every ten of (a group of people, originally a mutinous Roman legion) as a punishment for the whole group
the man who is to determine whether it be necessary to decimate a large body of mutineers
derivatives

decimator
Historically, the meaning of the word decimate is 'kill one in every ten of (a group of people)'. This sense has been more or less totally superseded by the later, more general sense 'kill, destroy, or remove a large proportion of', as in 'the virus has decimated the population'. Some traditionalists argue that this is incorrect, but it is clear that it is now part of standard English


word origin

late 16th century: from Latin decimat- 'taken as a tenth', from the verb decimare, from decimus 'tenth'. In Middle English the term decimation denoted the levying of a tithe, and later the tax imposed by Cromwell on the Royalists (1655)


https://en.bab.la/dictionary/english/decimate

These posts are getting far too intellectual for the forum

 Decimate meant originally to kill every tenth man as a punishment for cowardice or mutiny. Its application
 is naturally extended to the destruction in any way of a large proportion of  anything reckoned by number, e.g. a
 population may be said to be decimated by a plague. But undue advantage is taken of this latitude by a journalist
 who applies the word to the virtual extermination of rabbits by myxomatosis; and anything that is expressly
 inconsistent with the proper sense (A single frosty night decimated the currants by as much as 8oo%) must be avoided.
 A startling example of what this may lead to was given by a contributor to correspondence in The Times on the
 misuse of the word LITERALLY. 'I submit the following' he wrote, 'long and  lovingly remembered from my "penny
 dreadful" days: Dick, hotly pursued by the scalp-hunter, turned in his saddle, fired, and literally decimated his opponent.' See SLIPSHOD EXTENSION.

Where Fowler leads, I follow.

Quote from: Raider4 on 06 July 2024, 12:23:38 PMI watch a lot of US-based space launches, and they use the phrase
"<thing> is nominal", meaning "within normal parameters" all the time.

My brain, of course, translates it automatically as "in name only".

When I was a baby programmer, we had to import a genuine American because some issue with the US made hardware was causing the entire project to come to a halt.

He was an uptight little man, from his short buttoned up to his fat little neck, to his heavy frames glasses to his oil-slick hair. His movements were abrupt and somehow prissy. He had (and I shall not reveal it) a name which sounded like an anagram. Above all, he was super impressed with him own importance.

I was stuck for something to do until he did what he was supposed to, so I took to the break area with one of the big orange manuals for the computers we were using.

He wondered in and fussed about complaining that we didn't have reaaaal coffee. I asked him how things were going and his answer is forever burned in my memory.

"The sit-ooo-ation is nominal at this time."


I still don't know what he meant, but he took days to fix our "nominal sit-ooo-ation".