| Re: adjective form of decade |
Posted via Supernews, ht .. |
| Douglas Sederberg (vornoffREMOVE@sonic.net) |
2004/05/26 10:35 |
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From: Douglas Sederberg <vornoffREMOVE@sonic.net>
Newsgroups: alt.languages.english
Subject: Re: adjective form of decade
Date: Wed, 26 May 2004 09:35:19 -0700
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In article <40b49d90$0$19642$626a14ce@news.free.fr>, Loki Harfagr
<lars.hummigeret@yahuu.no> wrote:
>
> > I are a engineer.
> >
> > Is there an adjective form of the word decade? I want to describe
> > something that happens only once in ten years.
>
> "Decennial" is the word you need.
> Remember that "decade" implies 10 *days* not 10 years
> though many people seem to propagate the ill use :D)
>
If this usage is ill, it seems everyone in the USA is sick. I can't
think of a single instance where 'decade' has meant 10 days and not 10
years. It may be some official meaning, maybe in French, but if it does
mean 10 days, it's never used that way in ordinary English.
From an on-line dictionary:
DECADE (from Gr. ~ka, ten), a group or series containing ten members,
particularly a period of ten years. In the new calendar made at the
time of the French Revolution in 1793, a decade of ten days took the
place of the week. The word is also used of the divisions containing
ten books or parts into which the history of Livy was divided.
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