Check out the perfect set of teeth on the skull of the soldier shown in the article. Amazing how human dental health has changed since then.
Due to "softer" diets and all the sugar, right?
Dead soldiers' teeth reveal diseases that doomed Napoleon's army
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Re: Dead soldiers' teeth reveal diseases that doomed Napoleon's army
#12"one that would see his army decimated by cold, hunger and disease." 2 things: A)decimated means 1 in 10, not 9 in 10. B) according to the wiki article, Napoleon had already lost 75% of his initial fighting force by the time he got to Moscow, before the withdrawal. I am not sure an article on biology should include much history--I would certainly hope it did a better job on the biology...
Yes, that phrase stuck out to me also.
Apologists for language attrition will assert that converging language into a handful of very simple words is doubleplusgood, and we should embrace the dumbification because that's 'just how languages work'.
But for a historical article, I did expect a slightly more nuanced take.
Re: Dead soldiers' teeth reveal diseases that doomed Napoleon's army
#13It is interesting that although Napoleon captured Moscow, the capital at that time was in Saint-Petersburg. Why didn't he go to the capital? This painting depicts Napoleon hopelessly waiting for a delegation from Russian Emperor with burning city in the background [1].
[1] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Napoleon_in_burning_...
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Re: Dead soldiers' teeth reveal diseases that doomed Napoleon's army
#14"one that would see his army decimated by cold, hunger and disease." 2 things: A)decimated means 1 in 10, not 9 in 10. B) according to the wiki article, Napoleon had already lost 75% of his initial fighting force by the time he got to Moscow, before the withdrawal. I am not sure an article on biology should include much history--I would certainly hope it did a better job on the biology...
You are figuratively killing me with your literalism.
These days some would've written, "you are literally killing me . . ." (which I find deplorable).
Re: Dead soldiers' teeth reveal diseases that doomed Napoleon's army
#15"one that would see his army decimated by cold, hunger and disease." 2 things: A)decimated means 1 in 10, not 9 in 10. B) according to the wiki article, Napoleon had already lost 75% of his initial fighting force by the time he got to Moscow, before the withdrawal. I am not sure an article on biology should include much history--I would certainly hope it did a better job on the biology...
Look in any dictionary and you'll find that that decimate means to devastate aswell. Language is what people speak not what people proscribe in books or the internet.
If frequency of use is an argument, one could argue that to decimate might not even be a word.
Re: Dead soldiers' teeth reveal diseases that doomed Napoleon's army
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
From https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/decimate Decimate is a word that often raises hackles, at least those belonging to a small but committed group of logophiles who feel that it is commonly misused. The issue that they have with the decline and fall of the word decimate is that once upon a time in ancient Rome it had a very singular meaning: “to select by lot and kill every tenth man of a military unit.”…
The more language is allowed to drift, the harder it becomes to read old language. I think this is a particularly silly case, but in general, the complaint that people are misusing words shouldn't be met with "It's impossible to misuse words", which this argument implicitly is.
Which language, Latin or English? Who says that in English it needs to have the same meaning as in Latin?
Heck, I've reminded about false friends. For example library ("librărie") in Romanian is the place where you buy books, not rent them.
Re: Dead soldiers' teeth reveal diseases that doomed Napoleon's army
#17"one that would see his army decimated by cold, hunger and disease." 2 things: A)decimated means 1 in 10, not 9 in 10. B) according to the wiki article, Napoleon had already lost 75% of his initial fighting force by the time he got to Moscow, before the withdrawal. I am not sure an article on biology should include much history--I would certainly hope it did a better job on the biology...
Look in any dictionary and you'll find that that decimate means to devastate aswell. Language is what people speak not what people proscribe in books or the internet.
Prescribe, and it's both of these things.
Re: Dead soldiers' teeth reveal diseases that doomed Napoleon's army
#18[flagged]
Re: Dead soldiers' teeth reveal diseases that doomed Napoleon's army
#19Examples from 13 soldiers out of 500,000 — very representative, indeed.
Re: Dead soldiers' teeth reveal diseases that doomed Napoleon's army
#20Great day Borodin
We are brotherly feasts commemorating,
firmly: “Were the tribes,
Disaster threatening Russia;
Not all eh Europe there was?
Whose star led her!..
But we began to train hard pyatoyu
And chest took the pressure
tribes, obedient to the will of the proud,
And is was an unequal dispute.
And what? a disastrous escape,
kichas, they have forgotten now;
Lost Russian bayonet and snow,
Pogrebshy their glory in the desert.
Familiar feast beckons them again -
Chmielna for them Slavyanov blood;
But it will be hard for a hangover;
But guests will long dream
on close, cold Novosel,
Under the northern cereal fields!