On: German contest to live in depopulated Soviet-era city proves global hit

[usr1106]

Depopulated sounds like nobody is living there, something like Pripyat. This town is said to have lost over 50% of its former 53,000 so still over 25,000 left. And apartments in GDR were rather small.

Not a native speaker, but is depopulated really the right word here or just clickbait? At least I was expecting something else. Heavily shrunk of course.

[dotancohen → usr1106]

Does decaffeinated coffee have zero caffeine? Do deboned fish have zero bones? Does debugged software have zero bugs?

[usr1106 → dotancohen]

Not zero, but an only insignificant residual because zero is hard to achieve in real life. Also Pripyat has some illegal inhabitants.

(I don't think debugged software is a commonly used term, so no need to discuss the meaning)

Edit: Genuine question: Would native speakers call Detroit depopulated? The shrinkage seems to be about the same ratio.

[weregiraffe → usr1106]

Does detroit contain zero troits?

[dotancohen → weregiraffe]

I don't speak French, but I think that Detroit contains one big troit (strait), hence the city's name.

But that's certainly less troits than bones in a deboned fish!

[relaxing → usr1106]

Does desaturated mean a color with zero saturation?

[kortilla → dotancohen]

If decaffeinated coffee had half the caffeine of regular coffee it would most certainly not be called that. Same with deboned fish.

The expectation using those terms is that only a negligible amount remains if any at all.

[DaSHacka → usr1106]

I guess the difference between "unpopulated" and "depopulated" is the former means no one at all, while the latter just means the population had a (meaningfully significant) decrease.

[benterix → usr1106]

> Not a native speaker, but is depopulated really the right word here

Straight from the dictionary:

depopulate (v): to substantially reduce the population of (an area)

[popalchemist → usr1106]

You're thinking of "unpopulated." "Depopulated" means the population has DEcreased.

[usr1106 → popalchemist]

Unpopulated is static, no change implied.

Depopulated implies change, people used to live there. For me it meant no significant number left.

[popalchemist → usr1106]

> Depopulated implies change

yes, as I said, it means a decrease, but the question of to what degree is unspecified. The assumption that it means to a near-zero degree is erroneous.

[willvarfar → usr1106]

Does 25000 people leaving a city not count as depopulation then?

[kortilla → willvarfar]

No, people wouldn’t call Detroit depopulated

[aprilthird2021 → usr1106]

> is depopulated really the right word here or just clickbait?

I would consider depopulated to be correct