I wish I were decimated by taxes...

This is a public service announcement to everyone who uses the word "decimate".

Inigo Montoya: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

De-ci-mate: Latin for... one tenth (deci-), to kill (-mate) .
To kill 1/10th.

It should not be used as it was by Washington Post columnist William A Arkin describing Iraq:

In other words, short of decimating the insurgents and the militias and the terrorists in an all-out renewed war, which isn't going to happen, what has already happened has left behind an image and a legacy that withdrawal won't make worse.

I imagine we've decimated the terrorists a few times over, but it takes a half dozen decimations to even get a majority.

Nor should it be used as by this McGill Professor

I’ve always thought of some of what academics do as “playing at” being of a higher social class than we are. Major field-wide conferences [cough]NCA![/cough]are held at hotels so expensive that they decimate university travel budgets.

I could be wrong, but I think he's complaining that the hotel cuts into a lot more than 10% of the travel budget (or he goes to too many conferences!).

So what makes a professional writer (and his editor) and a college professor all flub it up?

Decimate has come to be such a loaded word because its use by the Romans was punitive and barbaric. When a legion failed to perform they could be decimated, in which they would draw straws and the 9/10ths of the "winners" would be forced to bludgeon every 10th member to death. I can only imagine that was a pretty horrible occurance, and much of that horror persists in the word to this day.