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Have many people really had the traditional definition drummed into them at school, or have they more often had it drummed into them somewhere else, e.g. via their peers? I am sceptical on this one.
I think the liberal definition is best understood in terms of consequences. People say that something is decimated if it undergoes a culling so severe that recovery will not be possible for a very long time if ever. This supports the hypothesis of semantic interference from “devastate”, and agrees with The Economist that it is not applicable in cases of complete destruction.