[time-nuts] Misuse of word "decimate" (was Re: Short term 10MHz source)

[Magnus Danielson]

Peter,

While the word derives back to the Roman times, today it is a technical 
term for data-reduction being used in professional literature, so it's 
meaning has already been established.

For instance, in modern phase-noise measurement setups the sample-rate 
is around 100 MS/s, and that sample-rate of multiple ADCs with 
relatively high amounts of bits is way to high to hand over to software, 
so it is decimated down in steps in FPGA before handing over to 
software. Decimation is the term used in that context.

Cheers,
Magnus

On 2019-01-10 13:01, Peter Vince wrote:
> 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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