[steppi]

From https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/decimate

Decimate is a word that often raises hackles, at least those belonging to a small but committed group of logophiles who feel that it is commonly misused. The issue that they have with the decline and fall of the word decimate is that once upon a time in ancient Rome it had a very singular meaning: “to select by lot and kill every tenth man of a military unit.” However, many words in English descended from Latin have changed and/or expanded their meanings in their travels. For example, we no longer think of sinister as meaning “on the left side,” and delicious can describe things both tasty and delightful. Was the “to kill every tenth man” meaning the original use of decimate in English? Yes, but not by much. It took only a few decades for decimate to acquire its broader, familiar meaning of “to severely damage or destroy,” which has been employed steadily since the 17th century.

[mathgradthrow]

The more language is allowed to drift, the harder it becomes to read old language. I think this is a particularly silly case, but in general, the complaint that people are misusing words shouldn't be met with "It's impossible to misuse words", which this argument implicitly is.

[soared]

No one allows or disallows language to drift, there are no language enforcers. This argument is not “it’s impossible” but rather it’s pedantic to claim a word is misused, when it’s been used this way for hundreds of years and so the original definition is no longer applicable.

[BurningFrog]

Someone could of course institute language enforcers for English, but I'm very skeptical about both the enforcement mechanisms, and the usefulness of even a successful enforcement.

[hermitcrab]

>there are no language enforcers

Bodies like the Académie Française do try to promote language standards ('enforce' is probably not the right word). But I'm not sure how successful they are.

[card_zero]

We are all language enforcers, forcing it to drift in some ways and stopping it from drifting in others.

[soared]

I suppose that is true and kind of a fun perspective!

[ciupicri]

Which language, Latin or English? Who says that in English it needs to have the same meaning as in Latin?

Heck, I've reminded about false friends. For example library ("librărie") in Romanian is the place where you buy books, not rent them.

[card_zero]

My particular thing is to avoid Latin plurals in English, but I'm never sure how far to take it. Definitely forums, but axises is possibly annoying.