Recent questions sent in by readers about language and languages:
Q. When did the word “decimated” come to mean wiped out or annihilated? I’ve been hearing it used this way for some time now, and it’s driving me crazy.
— Robert Janke, Des Plaines
A. This one probably falls into the category of obscure etymological trivia — too obscure to make a rule out of it.
The trivia is that “decimate,” derived from the Latin “decem” for “ten,” originally meant “to reduce by one-tenth” or, more specifically, “to kill every tenth person,” a punishment reportedly practiced by the ancient Roman military. But so few people know this gruesome history that you’ll probably confuse people if you try to use the word to mean “destroy a tenth of.” Besides, why base language rules on ancient Roman military practices?
“Decimate” was used in the sense of “to destroy or wipe out a large part of” at least as early as the 19th Century, when author Laurence Oliphant wrote, “Cholera was then decimating the country.”
Q. In Italian, how or when did “ciao” (hello) evolve to regular usage for “arrivederci” (goodbye)?
— Daniel J. Smith, Chicago
A. I asked Max Braglia, an Italian native and Floridian who produces a podcast on learning to speak Italian at www.learnitalianpod.com.
“I wouldn’t say that ciao has evolved to regular usage for arrivederci,” Braglia writes by e-mail. “Ciao and arrivederci are two different types of greeting — both still widely used in Italian. While ciao is informal, and used at all times among relatives and friends or with children, both when meeting and leaving, arrivederci can be . . . both formal and informal, and it’s always used upon leaving.”
Braglia adds, “In those instances where ciao and arrivederci have the same meaning (when leaving and saying goodbye in an informal way), then you could say ciao is actually more popular — I guess for no particular reason, other than the fact that ciao is easier to pronounce than arrivederci. Still, the word arrivederci is very widely used in Italian.”
Q. When I was in school, we were taught that proper grammar would be “almost all” and “almost every.” But these days the Tribune uses “most all” and “most every.” Please let me know when this new use of the word “most” became interchangeable with the word “almost.”
— Patricia Makowski, Des Plaines
A. That happened in the 16th Century, according to “Fowler’s Modern English Usage,” third edition. “Most” used this way probably started as an abbreviation of “almost” — in fact, it used to be written with an apostrophe before the word to show that a letter had been dropped, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.
These days, Fowler’s says, using “most” instead of “almost” is “effectively limited to some U.K. dialects and to American English.” It’s possible that British norms have influenced American ideas that this use of “most” is improper.
As I hear it, “most every” is more likely to be used as a rhetorical flourish; the debut album of the Chicago-based band Lying in States was called “Most Every Night,” which packs more poetic punch than “Almost Every Night.”
Q. A word I always thought was a legitimate word but apparently isn’t is “birthmate.” It is someone who shares your birthday and year of birth — that is, born on exactly the same day. Celebrity case in point: Doris Day and the late Marlon Brando. What do you think?
— Phil Schwimmer, Skokie
A. I didn’t find “birthmate” in any dictionary I checked, but I did find this title of an out-of-print book published in 1988: “The Birthmate Book: A Collection of Heroes, Rogues, Villains, and Stars Who Share Your Special Day.”
Most of the top search results for “birthmate” on Google, however, are brand names for treatments and medications for pregnant women.
Q. Why do people say the word “niche” as if it rhymes with “itch,” instead of as if it rhymes with “quiche”?
— Marilyn Rottman, Grand Rapids, Mich.
A. Of the four dictionaries I checked, two list both “nitch” and “neesh,” one lists both “neesh” and “nish,” and one lists only “nitch.”
For what it’s worth, “neesh” is the pronunciation provided in Yvette Reche’s recent book “French for Le Snob: Adding Panache to Your Everyday Conversations” (Santa Monica Press, 360 pages, $16.95).
My guess is she only entertains one way to pronounce “Reche.”
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Contact Nathan Bierma at onlanguage@gmail.com.
