[time-nuts] Misuse of word "decimate" (was Re: Short term 10MHz source)
Peter Vince
petervince1952 at gmail.com
Thu Jan 10 12:01:09 UTC 2019
In his comment below, Mark has used the word "decimate". There is much
debate about what this word means (presently, and/or in the past), but
common explanations refer back to Roman times when they apparently killed
one person in ten as a punishment, and similarly "tithes" - or taxes, where
one in ten was taken. Now OK, you can argue this until the cows come home,
but the result is that the meaning isn't crystal clear, and particularly on
a technical forum where precision is paramount, and the entire reason we
are here, I believe accuracy and clarity of expression is also important.
In this instance, I believe "truncate" would be a better word.
</rant> :-)
Regards,
Peter Vince
On Wed, 9 Jan 2019 at 23:56, Mark Sims <holrum at hotmail.com> wrote:
> ...
> And as far as decimating the TICC output values in firmware... please
don't. Let the user decimate the values if they want to.
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