what is the origin of decimate?
353357
[Latin decimre, decimt-, \nto punish every tenth person, from decimus, tenth, \nfrom decem, ten. See dek in Indo-European Roots.]\n\nUsage Note: Decimate originally referred to the killing of every tenth person, a punishment used in the Roman army for mutinous legions. Today this meaning is commonly extended to include the killing of any large proportion of a group. Sixty-six percent of the Usage Panel accepts this extension in the sentence The Jewish population of Germany was decimated by the war, even though it is common knowledge that the number of Jews killed was much greater than a tenth of the original population. However, when the meaning is further extended to include large-scale destruction other than killing, as in The supply of fresh produce was decimated by the nuclear accident at Chernobyl, only 26 percent of the Panel accepts the usage.
821509
I read a magazine article saying that in the old days when they had a worker in their village they wanted to get rid of they burnt down that person's house so that they would leave the village. That is where "fired" came from.\n\nAt least that is how the magazine's Historic Trivia column described the origin.
532347
Since the earliest moments of modern human language 100,000 years ago, there were things which people feared--death and the spirit world. Linked to this were processes which were not completely understood--conception (including the procreative act) and the inner workings of the human body. As a response to that fear or ignorance certain groups of words became taboo, which means that you don't talk about them. Why not talk about them? Because by naming death, you summoned it to you; by talking about reproduction, you risked the life of the unborn; by naming a deceased relative, you summoned their ghost; by talking about a body part used in reproduction, you risked its malfunction; by naming a deity, you called it to you and that was never a good idea.\n\nDeath is a common one. No one says, "My father died". People say, "He passed away", "He went to meet his Maker", "He went to the great golf course in the sky". In fact, we know that there was an Old English word that meant "to die", because the Middle English word is clearly derived from an Old English word, but it was never, ever written down anywhere in all the Old English texts that exist. In some cultures, you never again mention the name of a dead person.\n\nAnother common place for taboo words is in human reproduction. We don't say, "I f**ked her and she got pregnant" in polite company. You say, "We fell in love and she is now eating for two." The same goes for waste elimination processes.\n\nWhen someone says a taboo word, the common reaction is to cringe or shy away from that person. You don't want to bring the wrath of deity down on your head, you don't want death to come, you don't want a woman to miscarry. All these things are common responses to the use of taboo words.\n\n"Cursing" is just an extension of the use of taboo words. In Modern English, there is a certain set of words referring to body waste elimination, the reproductive act, and the body parts used in that act, that are considered wrong to use in polite company. This is just a modern version of the taboo words that have always been with us.\n\nEDIT: And BTW, there is not a single solitary curse word in English that is derived from an acronym. They are all ancient words in English and date back to Proto-Germanic. In fact, 2500 years ago, "f**k" was the POLITE way to talk about intercourse. Then it was the POLITE way to talk about breeding animals. It is only in the last few centuries that it became taboo and not a respectable word to use in formal settings.\n\nEDIT after reading next post:  LMAO. LMAO.  I did NOT say that f**k came from GERMAN.  Read carefully, and you will see I wrote it comes from PROTO-GERMANIC.  Do your homework before you open your mouth next time.  Proto-Germanic is the common ancestor language of all the Germanic languages.  It is NOT German.  Every Germanic language has a cognate term for English f**k (and the German term is not the one you cite, the German form that is cognate is ficken, matching Dutch fokken and Low German fucken).  F**k is NOT an acronym and does not come from an acronym.  The first time the word was actually written down was in 1503 and was spelled fuk at that time.  Kind of shoots the acronym theory to hell if f**k isn't even spelled that way in its earliest written use.  And why was it not written in English before 1503?  Because is was considered vulgar long before the 19th century judges used it as a euphemism.  It has slipped in and out of vulgarity several times in its history.  Do your homework next time.  Your grade for this exercise, Mr. Aumporpoise:  F.
681710
"QT" is the abbreviation of "quiet." \n\nSo "on the QT" is something that should be kept quiet.  I do not know the origin of how it started though.\n\nModification:\nDid find this site that states where it might have come from but it isn't definite: http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/9/messages/127.html
919754
The saying comes from the Book of Common Prayer used in many Anglican churches.  It actually referrers to the passage in the Christian bible in Genesis 3:19: In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou [art], and unto dust shalt thou return.\n\nIt refers to the mortality of man and the fact that our body will decay and return to the earth we were formed from.
383253
The term, which has been around since the 18th century, is of unknown origin but there are several theories floating about, none of which has anything to do with thatched roofs!\n\nRain cats and dogs: If the rain is teeming down the it's said to be raining cats and dogs. This seems to be an odd way of describing weather. The expression first appeared in print in 1653.("It shall raine.....dogs and polecats").\nThere are three possible origins, one of which goes back to Norse times. In old Norse weather lore the cat was related to rain and the dog to the wind. If this were the origin then it is likely that the words would have appeared in print before 1653.\n\nThe second suggestion puts the basis in the Greek word Catadupa, "cataract" or "waterfall".\n\nThe final idea suggests that the drainage of medieval streets was so poor that cats and dogs frequently drowned during a heavy downpour. Swift's "Description of a City Shower" (1710) gives a good idea of what it was like. It's worth repeating.
667858
When the earth was forming it was extremely hot and water existed merely as vapour, if it fell it never reached the ground being in suspension constantly. Then when the first rains fell boy did they fall, and the rain cycle began.\n\nVapour clouds came first.
767004
Apart from Greek words having been incorporated into English especially in scientific and philosophical language, the relation is very distant.\nGreek and the Germanic dialects,(which English originated from) parted company in prehistoric times.\nThey both belong to the Indo-European language group.
713364
Someone on mindlesscrap.com tried to answer this, but I think they came up with a very inadequate answer:\n\n "The phrase started up in the 1980s by teens in the United States.  It's an offshoot of the use of the word "cool" that had been in existence since the 1940s.  That usage was associated with the cool jazz movement of the 1940s, especially Charlie Parker's 1947 record Cool Blues."\n\nI like my guess better:\n\nIt came from the Grateful Dead culture.  At each G.D concert, there'd be people who would serve up vegetarian fare and love.  Someone started saying that, inspired by the cold bean dish which made a great dip, and didn't require any extra fuel.
403575
http://search.yahoo.com/search?ei=utf-8&fr=slv8-frz&p=history%20of%20the%20word%20%22divorce%22\n\nno one person...it simply evolved from Latin as most all our words do....and it did so stemming from the need to identify the act of when a marriage had to be dissolved...Unfortunatley there have arisen these "necessities" throughout the course of history due not only to marital misbehavior, but poor judgements in entering marriage....it's just sad, but that's my take on it.
48176
plummet- fall quickly\nprimitive- uncultured; low-quality\nspectacular- really good; entertaining\ntremendous- huge
738689
Interesting.  A google of "dedceyl" returns only your question.  I am drawing a blank trying to analyze it phonetically.  You should try again, perhaps providing a little more information as to why you think it exists.
368316
Not really sure about this one. It sounds like it originated in Britian but I can't find references to that. The US uses it  when discussing energy and the British uses it too but to a lesser degree. Sorry can't give a more fulfilling answer.\n\nCheck out.\n\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_thermal_unit\n\nI did more checking and found this other site. Do I get the best answer award?!\n\nhttp://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-btu.htm
148425
Lukewarm, meaning 'moderately warm; tepid' is another of those words that is either rather simple or somewhat complicated to explain, depending on how thorough one prefers one's etymological analysis.\n\nThe simple explanation is that lukewarm, which first appears in English in the late fourteenth century, is formed from Middle English luke, which itself means 'lukewarm; tepid', and warm.\n\nOnce we get to luke it begins to get a bit hairy. This word is often connected to lew, or in Old English hléowe 'tepid', but the alteration with the added -k- cannot be readily explained. However, there are various forms equivalent to luke in other Germanic languages, such as Low German lúk and Modern Dutch leuk, both also meaning 'lukewarm; tepid'.\n\nSkipping the mumbo-jumbo, it thus seems likely that these words stem from an original Indo-European base meaning 'warm', which developed one way into the luke forms and another way into the lew forms. Related words probably include calorie, cauldron, and scald, all from Latin roots.
151882
The 19th century British scientist and inventor, Michael Faraday discovered that compressing and liquefying a certain gas could chill air when the liquified gas was allowed to evaporate. His idea remained largely theoretical.\n\nOne of the first uses of air conditioning for personal comfort was in 1902 when the New York Stock Exchange's new building was equipped with a central cooling as well as heating system. Alfred Wolff, an engineer from Hoboken, New Jersey who is considered the forerunner in the quest to cool a working environment, helped design the new system, transferring this budding technology from textile mills to commercial buildings.
332279
Etymology: Latin abscondere to hide away, from abs- + condere to store up, conceal -- more at CONDIMENT\n: to depart secretly and hide oneself\n- ab·scond·er noun
1147125
It is actually unknown where the term originated, though it is often incorrectly identified as being attributed to the Harvard Computation Laboratory team*.  In 1947, team members there traced a problem in their Mark II computer to a moth trapped in a relay.  The term "bug" was already known to them, and finding a real one screwing up their machine was so funny that they saved it and made a note in their logbooks: "First actual case of bug being found".\n\nThe term was used in WWII and even prior to that in reference to engineering problems.  A letter from Thomas Edison dated 1878 even makes reference to them.\n\n*It is worthy to note that it is believed that the Harvard team DID coin the phrase "debug".