…that is the question. Decimate is a word that had a singular meaning, but has been changed by people using it incorrectly. The original meaning of decimate was to reduce by 10%. Deci is from Latin for ten and is used in words like decimal which means a base of tens. Anyway, because people used decimate instead of devastate the meaning is gradually evolving to mean completely annihilate or reduce by 90% (ish). It still annoys me when I read it in a book or hear people using it on the news or other places. I can’t help that, I was raised by an English teacher. The lesson here though is that as writers we need to use the language that our audience uses. I don’t do that in these emails because I use Australian English and spelling even though most of you are from the USA. No doubt some of you will have picked that up. I suspect, without clear proof, that Google ranks pages with USA English above pages with English as spoken and written in other English speaking counties even when they might otherwise rank better. It’s all to do with what they see as ‘proper’ grammar and spelling. Can anyone provide proof or disprove my thoughts on this? When I want to write for the USA audience I use Grammarly to change my perfectly good English to a different version of perfectly good English. It’s just a setting. You’ll find Grammarly here: https://go.wm-tips.com/grammarly. Regards, |
Where the marketing is easy.
