Pixel Scroll 9/9/17 The Map Is Not The Epic Fantasy Just As The Pixel Is Not The Scroll

(1) FURRY COUNCILMAN OUSTED. A city councilman in the eastern U.S. was pressured into quitting after his activities as a furry fan became a source of public controversy. The Danbury, Connecticut News Times has the story: “New Milford councilman resigns after furor over ‘furry’ activities”.

Town Council member Scott Chamberlain had never made a secret of his deep involvement in Furry Fandom, a subculture of adults who dress in mascot-like animal costumes, attend role-playing conventions and interact regularly online.

But an uproar ensued when a town resident posted on a community Facebook page several screenshots of Chamberlain’s profile from a private website catering to “furries,” many of whom participate in or write about unusual sexual practices. The profile includes a list of Chamberlain’s “loves,” “likes” and “hates,” some sexual in nature, but also said that he “tolerates” rape.

In an interview at midday Thursday, Chamberlain explained his involvement in the “furry” community as a harmless hobby.

“It’s nothing to do with sex; it’s an interest in cartoon animals,” said the first-term Democrat, who was up for re-election.

But Mayor David Gronbach, saying elected officials should be held to a “higher standard,” called for Chamberlain’s immediate resignation, and within two hours party officials said he would resign all his town and party positions by Monday morning.

(2) PROGRESS. The “Help Lezli See (Eye Surgery)” campaign has now raised $6,525 of its $8,000 goal. The contributions have come from 130 donors, including Game of Thrones producer David Benioff.

(3) GENRE GROWTH. At Amazing Stories David Gerrold has a guest editorial, “Humanity’s’ R&D Department – Science Fiction”.

The evolution of science fiction is a reflection of our changing culture. Attitudes that were commonplace in the past have been recognized as antiquated, quaint, and obsolete.

Our national conversation is the result of our diverse history. We’re not the proverbial melting pot — no, we’re a tossed salad. Every new wave of immigrants adds new ingredients to the mix, new flavors to discover; but all arrive with the same dream, a place to build a better life. We are immigrants, or we are the descendants of immigrants, and as a people we are learning to recognize the strength and value of our national diversity — it gives us a greater sense of the global village.

So, yes, it is inevitable that science fiction authors will explore that diversity — expanded roles for women, new definitions of gender and sexuality, the contributions of People of Color and other non-white ethnicities. We’ve discovered the overlooked skills of the aged and the disabled, the unusual and extraordinary ratiocinations of people who are neuro-atypical. The next generation of authors are exploriong vast new landscapes of possibility — places to explore and discover ways of being human previously unconsidered.

Even as science extends its reach outward, probes journeying as far as Pluto, telescopes peering to the farthest edges of the universe, as we expand our knowledge of what’s out there, some of our most ambitious authors are turning their attention to a different frontier —exploring the workings of the human soul.

We’ve seen some remarkable work, truly transformative — mind bending. Yes, it’s non-traditional — so what? Science fiction has always been non-traditional. It has always been “that weird stuff.” It has always been subtly subversive — and sometimes even openly dangerous.

(4) SPACE FOR YOU. Brandon O’Brien muses about the genre:

Further down he says:

(5) STRANGE HORIZONS. Elsewhere, O’Brien encourages people to participate in the “Strange Horizons Fund Drive 2017”. $4,726 out of $16,000.

(6) AWARD WORTHY. The Hugo Award Book Club waxes nostalgic about “The science fiction art of Erik Nitsche”.

There was no Hugo Award given for Best Artist in 1957 at the 15th Worldcon in London. But since awards were given in other categories, there is no provision in the current rules of the WSFS constitution to award any Retro Hugos for that year. Which is a shame, because some of the finest work from one of the most innovative graphic designers of the era had started verging into the realm of science fiction in 1955 and 1956. The name Erik Nitsche is rarely brought up in conversations of science fiction, but is well-known to historians of graphic design. In 1955, the Swiss-born designer had been hired by General Dynamics to create promotional imagery for the organization’s annual International Conferences on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy (ICPUAE).

(7) WASTED ON THE YOUNG? In The Guardian, Joanna Walsh asserts “All the awards for young writers amount to discrimination”.

A few years ago I wrote an article for the Guardian on ageism in the literary world, about the predilection of publications like Granta, the New Yorker and Buzzfeed for authors under the age of 40. The problem hasn’t gone away and on Tuesday I wrote an open letter to the Royal Society of Literature, after it called for nominations for 40 new fellows under 40.

Encouraging young writers is laudable. After all, it’s increasingly difficult to get started. Publishers’ advances are low and getting lower; arts degrees are more expensive than Stem subjects; social security is fiercely tested. Which must mean that those most able to pay for a writing course, or those most able to take time off work to write while still young, are those most likely to have money, security, contacts, confidence. There’s a correlation between setting an age bar and encouraging the already privileged.

All writers were young once, and many start writing young, but not all begin their careers as published authors at that point. Leaving aside the fact that some only decide to start writing later in life, many factors affect one’s ability to commit to writing seriously. Besides income issues, age bars can lead an organisation into worrying territory. Authors from outside the perceived cultural mainstream who do not already see their voices represented – LGBTQ writers, writers of colour – are sometimes slow to recognise the contribution they can make, or to feel like their voices will be valued.

Age is a feminist issue. Careers, delayed by years looking after children or other dependents, are mostly women; residencies that offer no childcare or require long stays are an easy way to sift female candidates out of contention. Older women are already told every day, in ways ranging from the subtle to the blatant, that they are irrelevant and should shut up. Multiply this by, say, race or gender, and the courage required to put work out is even greater. Or the potential writer might not be the carer, but the cared-for. Writers who live with a disability or ill-health may not start out until they have found a way to write with their condition – which may take longer than this 40-years-old rule allows for.

(8) TODAY IN HISTORY

  • September 9, 1927 — Silent horror-comedy The Cat and the Canary turns 90 today.

(9) COMICS SECTION.

  • John King Tarpinian found one it takes a moment to figure out: The Argyle Sweater.
  • It’s Daredevil vs. Spider-man at Bliss.

(10) JUST PLAIN FOWL. The Guardian profiles actor Michael Keaton: “Michael Keaton: ‘There was a lot of bad taste in the 90s and I contributed to that’”.

He has made a career out of taking the unpredictable route: you can never guess his next role, and then he never plays it the way you’d expect. In his breakthrough movie, 1983’s Mr Mom, Keaton played a stay-at-home father at a time when such a concept was almost unheard of, and he played him as a man who has no idea how to do any of the stereotypically masculine jobs around the house; when asked if he’s rewiring the house with 220 volts, Keaton adlibbed, “220, 221, whatever it takes”. He was the dazzlingly frenetic lead in Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice, a largely improvised performance opposite fellow ghosts Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis. With Burton again, he played Batman as a conflicted nerd, rather than a grinning muscle man. In Birdman, he plays an actor so neurotic, he ends up running through Manhattan in his underwear.

(11) PRATCHETT INSPIRES FAST FOOD AD. Arby’s is known for its roast beef, not its Morpork….

(12) HISTORY CORRECTED. Have researchers finally discovered Sweden’s real-life version of Lady Brienne of Tarth or Xena the Warrior Princess? “Viking warrior found in Sweden was a woman, researchers confirm”.

The grave, which Hedenstierna-Jonson describes as the world’s “ultimate warrior Viking grave”, was discovered and excavated by Swedish archeologist Hjalmar Stolpe at the end of the 19th century. Because of the “manly” warrior equipment found in the grave, it was just assumed – rather than proven – that the remains were that of a man.

But a few years ago, Anna Kjellström, an osteologist at the Stockholm University, brought out the remains to study them for another research project and noticed that something was amiss. The cheekbones were finer and thinner than that of a man, and the hip bones were typically feminine. An osteological analysis was carried out, lending even more support to her suspicion.

Now, however, a DNA-analysis has been carried out, clearly confirming that the Viking warrior was indeed a woman.

(13) WEEDING THE PLOT. Your cabal curator, Shaun Duke:

(14) PLUNGE RIGHT IN. Beware: John Scalzi is a language prescriptivist and a plumber.

(15) GRITE LITERATURE. Camestros Felapton has had a busy day, posting chapters from Timothy the Talking Cat’s work in progress, Chiseled McEdifice: Returns.

Just then a gunshot rang out and a bullet ricocheted off his space marine helmet (he was wearing his space marine helmet obviously – look at the cover image). The HUD display flickered on in his helmet (no that isn’t ‘redundant’ I can’t just say ‘his HUD flickered on’ as that sounds perverted to me). Targeting identified a heat source 501.67 metres away to the north east.

“Enhance,” McEdifice vocalised and in some sort of cool special effect way the helmet magnified that area of his vision (with maybe a hi-tech noise like boop-ooohwushboop). It was one of the Treerat gang!

The Treerat Gang: a bunch of outlaws and pagan worshippers of the ancient demonic squirrel god. They had a lasting hate for McEdifice ever since he drove them and their filthy ways out of town and killed their leader in a shoot-out.

“Oh dear!” said McEdifice as he once again made a futile attempt to apply the brakes! Just then the front wheel hit a particularly large pebble! The bike crashed and McEdifice was thrown clear!

KABOOM! The bicycle exploded in a fiery explosion as a consequence of it hitting a rock. McEdifice rushed over and beat back the flames and then with one mighty flick of his shoulders he hoisted up the flaming bike and threw it into a near by pond which I should have probably mentioned earlier.

(16) NO TRUCE IN THE CULTURE WARS. Sadly, Lawrence Person ended his Jerry Pournelle obituary with an irrelevant shot at “SJWs”.

He edited a number of anthologies over the years; when he finally received a Hugo nomination for that, Social Justice Warrior bloc voting made sure he finished below No Award.

Person didn’t think it was important to mention that Pournelle was slated onto the 2016 ballot by the Rabid Puppies, which was the direct cause of that outcome. Or that Pournelle was nominated for eight other Hugos and finished above No Award every time.

(17) MEAT. What are they selling in this video? It’ll come to you eventually. Includes L. Ron and an alien.

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Cat Eldridge, JJ, Darren Garrison, and David Doering for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Soon Lee.]

95 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 9/9/17 The Map Is Not The Epic Fantasy Just As The Pixel Is Not The Scroll

  1. (somehow I Canceled instead of Editing…)

    How can we be sure that @17 isn’t really a coverup for @9, with @11 for distraction? (Have there ever been 3 food items in a Scroll before?)

    @12: another poke in the eye for the people claiming that the armed women in GoT aren’t historical. Woot!

  2. @14: So, does Scalzi also complain when people talk about ‘conjuring’ and there is absolutely no oath-swearing or conspiring involved?

    Latin is not English. ‘Decimate’ in English doesn’t mean ‘killing one in ten’, it means ‘mass slaughter and/or destruction’.

    Get over it.

  3. @16: Unfortunately, Puppies are not the only ones commingling appreciation of Pournelle’s overall body of work with the question of whether his 2016 Hugo nomination had merit. Last year, John Scalzi wrote

    https://whatever.scalzi.com/2016/08/22/gum-on-the-shoe-of-history-or-why-the-hugos-are-still-not-destroyed/:

    Jerry Pournelle, a man of no uncertain talent and accomplishment who does in fact deserve better than to finish below “No Award,”

    And he was not really willing to engage with my argument that (1) the nomination was for editing an anthology, not an overall authorial career (2) the anthology in question consisted of work ranging from merely substandard to utterly despicable (3) the low quality of the work, combined with the illegitimacy of the nomination, did indeed merit a vote of “No Award”.

  4. It does sound, from that article in (1) that Chamberlain was ousted more for furry sex than not. But I’m not sure I’d want a guy representing me that ‘tolerates’ rape, either. Was that taken out of context, I wonder? Or does he really tolerate rape?

  5. @Ultragotha —

    Yeah, that “tolerates rape” bit is the only part that would make me support his ouster. And who knows what his profile actually said?

  6. Brad J on September 9, 2017 at 8:55 pm said:
    @14: So, does Scalzi also complain when people talk about ‘conjuring’ and there is absolutely no oath-swearing or conspiring involved?

    Latin is not English. ‘Decimate’ in English doesn’t mean ‘killing one in ten’, it means ‘mass slaughter and/or destruction’.

    Get over it.

    That’s not something that those who feel apparent word origins determine meaning can understand – because ‘understanding’ must require standing under something. 😉

  7. (16) NO TRUCE IN THE CULTURE WARS.
    This is not the time or the place to bring it up. Not while fans & friends are grieving & trying to honour Pournelle’s memory. Lawrence Person is being a crashing boor.

    (In other news, I am delighted to have Title Credit two days in a row & promise not to let it go to my head.)

  8. Soon Lee: Lawrence Person is being a crashing boor.

    In other words, it’s just a day like any other. 🙄

  9. Whew. After starting to fall behind around the 23rd, I decided to cut out all the end-of-August posts that I hadn’t read and catch up from September 1st. Now I’m mostly up-to-date.

    Read “River of Teeth” in the interim, and enjoyed it. Had some “seriously, hippos are _that_ aggressive moments,” did some wikipedia and google research, realized yes, they may well be _that_ aggressive.

    Started Hardinge’s Fly By Night and am enjoying it. I’ve still got about 40 pages to go in Sundown Towns (non-fiction is very slow for me, and depressing non-fiction doubly so), but I’m taking breaks now and then for lighter (fictional) fare. Excited to get to Jemisin at some point in the near future.

    (11) Seriously? Arby’s? Not that there’s anything wrong with that, I’m just surprised.

    @Chip Hitchcock

    @12: another poke in the eye for the people claiming that the armed women in GoT aren’t historical. Woot!

    Oh fer Puck’s sake! I’ve been fortunate in that I haven’t seen those claims.

    (16) The less said about that conclusion, the better.

  10. ULTRAGOTHA:

    “It does sound, from that article in (1) that Chamberlain was ousted more for furry sex than not. But I’m not sure I’d want a guy representing me that ‘tolerates’ rape, either. Was that taken out of context, I wonder? Or does he really tolerate rape?”

    This furry website has a part on the profile that looks something likes this:

    loves: XX
    likes: XX
    tolerates: XX
    hates: XX

    I have no idea if “rape” was part of the councilmans profile, if there was supporting information in the rest of the profile or if the word was used in a special meaning on that website.

  11. More info on Chamberlain:

    “In the midday interview, Chamberlain had said the private site, sofurry.com, requires users to sort topics into four categories — “loves,” “likes,” “tolerates” and “hates” — to manage the content sent to them.
    “It’s basically a search feature,” he said.”

    I have no idea of this is true. My guess, based on membership in sites for alternative sex, is that he was in some way into “rape-play”, i.e pretend non-consensual sex, and was open to receive mail on that subject.

  12. There are enough reviews of the IMAX Inhumans screening to get a Rotten Tomatoes score, and it’s a flat zero.

    Also Scalzi has another reason to be annoyed: “Imax is an investor in the show, and according to CEO Richard Gelfond, the decision to launch it on their global network of mega-screens is a way of “eventicising” TV.”

    Yes “eventicising” – a word that Google can find only in that quote.

  13. (1) Without going into any of the specifics in this particular case, there are a lot of status and privilege issues that float to the surface with the increased visibility of “deviant” activities. Right now the USA have a president who have bragged about sexual assault, but since he is perceived as successful and manly, he gets a pass. Meanwhile, a furry who possibly fantasises about rape sparks immediate calls of resignation from his peers and superiors.

    (No, this pattern isn’t unique to the USA.)

    (11) Given that description, I’d have expected something based on rat-on-a-stick or Cut Me Own Throat Dibbler.

    (12) I can recommend going to the actual academic article here.

    (13) The Dragon Award managed to raise from joke to irrelevance this year. Progress! Except possibly for those who crave attention over everything else.

  14. I believe that Arby’s Discworld tweet was done on the first day or so of the latest North American Discworld Convention. Don’t know if there was any sort of deliberate connection going on there.

  15. Re: Title of Today’s scroll. HA!

    13) Shaun is in the path of Irma in Florida, and really has no — to give these days.

    RE: Inhumans: Fresh this morning is a short review from author C.E. Murphy
    http://mizkit.com/picoreview-inhumans/

    16) Sigh. An important person of the field has passed away (regardless of what you think about his politics or books), and culture war sniping is your power move? Ugh.

    11) I am now imaging CMOT Dibbler as an Arby’s spokescharacter…

  16. 1) I had the impression he “tolerated rape” in the fanfic he read. I can see how that would make him stand out in the country that created Game of Thrones and Law and Order: Special Victims Unit. It’s not like we tolerate rape in our entertainment here in America.

    16) It was just a little creepy to see the obit notice on Jerry Pournelle’s site end with an announcement that Vox Day was making that book free on Kindle for a few days. On the other hand, if you want a copy and are willing to pay only the price of inflating the ‘sales figures’ on it, now’s the time.

  17. The misuse of “decimate” is a pet peeve of mine, too. I never hear it without being annoyed by it.

  18. 3) Being “subvervise” is indeed an important aspect of SF, but Gerrold’s examples don’t support subverversion as being a literary value in and of itself.

    He champions stories that oppose values that he himself doesn’t share. That’s easy. How does he react when encountering a story that questions all that he holds dear?

    Can there be “good subversion” ( opposes what I oppose) and “bad subversion” ( questions what I don’t want questioned)?

    Would he, for example, welcome a story that subverts the values of “cultural diversity”? How would he feel about an SF novel, say, that posited that liberal multi-cultures like those of the West were doomed to collapse, and that only relatively mono-cultural, conservative societies like China will thrive in the future?

  19. Is it just because I am a non-American and a non-male that would probably end up against the nearest wall in his vision of the future that I find it very hard to get over Jerry Pournelle’s political views and gush about what a wonderful man he was?

  20. Not even the Romans took it seriously. December hasn’t been the 10th month since January and February were added in the 8th century… BC!

  21. Anna Feruglio: Is it just because I am a non-American and a non-male that would probably end up against the nearest wall in his vision of the future….

    Is that what you really believe? Because I feel you’re insulting my intelligence with that remark.

  22. 7) As I recall, I suggested GEEZERS DESTROY SCIENCE FICTION! awhile back as another of the special “DESTROY!” projects coming out the past few years.

    DO senior writers face actual discrimination in the field, other than when publishers and contests and award make a special point of seeking out “younger” writers? Is chronological age the best guideline to define “young”? (F.M. Busby and Dave Duncan come to mind as writers whose careers didn’t start until they were in their 50’s.)

  23. Anna Feruglio:

    “Is it just because I am a non-American and a non-male that would probably end up against the nearest wall in his vision of the future that I find it very hard to get over Jerry Pournelle’s political views and gush about what a wonderful man he was?”

    Jerry Pournelle was against both Iraq-wars, that makes him a better man than many a leftwinger I know. He took the only acceptable stance that there was a lot of better things you could do with all that money.

    I choose to remember him for that. The last years there has already been too many authors that I do not want anything to do with. If I can, I will avoid adding new persons to that list and instead remember the works I admired.

  24. @kathodus Oh yes, hippos are that vicious. If not, more so. I have been told by friends from the relevant parts of Africa that you don’t need to be worried about most of the wildlife, but you do need to be really wary of the hippo. They’re big, they’re smart, and they have no fucks to give.

  25. Anna, I remember Jerry as someone who could entertain you with his stories; I tried to ignore his politics as much as possible. (One of his stories was about a bat that lived in a radio, when he was in school; another was about one of the teachers who like hitting his desk blotter with a ruler, and *someone* treated the blotter with potassium nitrate: bang!.)

  26. (14) This is called “the Etymological Fallacy,” which is “a tendency to believe that a word’s current meaning should be dictated by its roots.” I’m surprised how many otherwise-intelligent people fall for it. Not sure what causes people to fixate on “decimate” though.

    Oxford has written about it. Apparently the Romans never even used a form of the word, although they did have the practice of punishing one in ten.

  27. I’ve been bugged by “decimate” usage for most of my life. I think the “deci” part of the word is so obvious and precise-seeming that once aware of it I couldn’t let it go. I’d never use the word myself unless I meant to say that roughly a tenth of something had been killed or otherwise eliminated.

  28. @Simon and @Kathodus —

    in re: hippos

    You guys probably know this already, but hippos kill more people in Africa every year than any other animal.

    I did a summer internship at the St. Louis zoo one year. While I was there, one of the employees — I believe it was the curator of mammals, but I don’t remember now — was nearly killed by one of the hippos. Nasty buggers!

  29. @Clack —

    Would he, for example, welcome a story that subverts the values of “cultural diversity”? How would he feel about an SF novel, say, that posited that liberal multi-cultures like those of the West were doomed to collapse, and that only relatively mono-cultural, conservative societies like China will thrive in the future?

    Like, say, Ninefox Gambit? Remember, even Jedao vfa’g gelvat gb trg evq bs gur pnyraqevpny flfgrz, juvpu erdhverf fbpvrgl-jvqr pbasbezvgl; ur’f whfg vafgnyyvat n arj pnyraqne gung ur yvxrf orggre guna gur byq bar.

  30. I remember my parents went to a trip to Zimbabwe once. They were taking a canoe on a river and were advised not go into the river as there were crocodiles there. They were also advised that if a hippo started to swim towards them, they should jump into the water anyhow as the hippo would attack the canoe.

  31. Not only did decimate originally mean tithe, as Greg Hullender’s link points out, but another article I saw claimed that no scholar has been able to find any evidence that decimate has been used to mean “kill 10%” (or tithe) in centuries! (The sole exception being when someone is discussing the word itself.)

    Other words which now contradict their roots often retain some hint of the original meaning. Fantastic, for example, is mostly used to mean good these day, but can still be used to mean imaginary. (“He told me the most fantastic tale; I assumed he was drunk.”) Terrific also usually means good, but is occasionally hints at terror (“I was woken by the sound of a terrific explosion.”) These older meanings feel a bit old-fashioned, but they’re still in use. The “kill 10%” meaning of decimate is not. It’s not just archaic, it’s obsolete.

    So why do people complain about supposed-misuse of decimate but not fantastic or terrific? I have no idea, but I suspect it’s a form of snobbishness associated with the ability to recognize a Latin root. Mostly, though, I think it’s just randomly fashionable–if you complain, you’re virtually guaranteed to hear someone else go “yeah, I hate that too!” Complain about terrific or fantastic, and people will just look at you funny.

    Still seems hypocritical to complain about the one and not the others, though. And amazingly ignorant to complain about any of them.

  32. I had a very unpleasant encounter with Jerry Pournelle once (that had nothing whatsoever to do with politics) — but this is not the time or place to talk about it. His family and friends are grieving; his fans are mourning the loss of a quite good author. I’m told he could be a thoughtful and generous man; I extend sincere condolences to those who will miss him.

    People are complicated.

  33. My personal linguistic bugaboo is the use of “literally” to denote emphasis rather than, well, its literal meaning. We have plenty of words meaning “very” or “extremely”. We don’t have a good substitute for the literal meaning of “literally”.

    (I am very fond of my T-shirt that reads, “Misuse of “literally” drives me figuratively insane”.)

  34. @xtifr:

    Merriam-Webster, per the link I posted above, lists the “one in ten” in current usage as a transitive verb.

    Oxford shows it as a historic usage, not as obsolete. The “tithing” definition is obsolete per OED.

    Decimate is precise and I have used it in that precise meaning-but I’ll admit I might be obsolete. 😉 Otherwise, I prefer devastate or destroy over decimate.

  35. I think that I can pinpoint the moment that I started noticing and being annoyed by misuse of decimate: in the opening chapters of Endymion, the Shrike has emerged from the Time Tombs and is slaughtering the Vatican forces there to capture Aeneia. An underling reports to a commanding officer that their forces are being decimated. The officer snaps back that decimate meant 10 percent–did he really mean that so many people had been killed? The underling replied that no, it was more like (some larger number, maybe 30 percent.)

    Speaking of good writers that you really should avoid reading the personal opinions of, it is notible that Jerry Pournell’s very last post at Chaos Manner was defending Trump, claiming that Trump (who must have a heart of gold along with all the other guilding) didn’t want to deport Dreamers, but he had no choice because Obama.

  36. @Robert Reynolds:

    Dictionaries aren’t always up-to-date on such things (as Greg Hullender’s article–from Oxford–emphasizes). Especially, when people go around claiming the usage is current, it needs thorough research before they’ll be willing to acknowledge that it isn’t.

    “Destroy” is not a synonym–the modern meaning of decimate is to nearly destroy. Even hard-core descriptivists have no trouble saying that using decimate to mean destroy is misuse.

    “Devastate” is better, but suggests an emotional component that “decimate” lacks. You can say “she was devastated by the loss of her child”, but can’t substitute decimate. However, the existence of synonyms or near-synonyms is hardly unusual, and certainly not evidence that one or more of the words doesn’t really mean what it does.

    But if you’ve actually used decimate to mean “kill 10%” well, first, congrats on discovering a rare opportunity–that’s not something which comes up very often. (Which, I suspect, is the main reason the meaning changed.) And second, congrats on confusing your readers! 😀

    I rarely (if ever) use decimate myself, because of all the peeving, but I’m also not going to try to pretend that the most common meaning is magically wrong. If I were to use it, it would be in a sense that people might actually understand without Cliff Notes. 😉

  37. I too find the whitewashing of Pournelle’a political activities a little much. It’s gone beyond being nice and into being a weird kind of cover up.

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