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https://www.dictionary.com/browse/execute
"Execute" primarily means "carry out", not "kill". The latter definition is an adaption from the person designated to carry out the act of killing people for violating the law, which presumably at one point was done directly by the hereditary executive.
So, if there was any actual consistency to the English language, giving birth would mean the same as executing a new person..?
It used to be both definitions before modern morals and medical practices.
execute doesn’t mean to start, it means to stop…
No?
First Known Use 14th century, in the meaning "to carry (something) out fully : to put (something) completely into effect"
Interesting, thanks for the info and link.
So the next time I meet a woman that recently gave birth, I can confidently congratulate her for executing a new human!
Executing the birthing process, not executing the new human.
Like how you stir batter, not pancakes.
Ok, I'm still trying to understand here..
According to a number of other comments, execute basically means to complete a process. So, isn't the pancake the executed final product? Isn't the baby?... 🤔
English is so fucking confusing 🤷
When we say they were executed, we mean the process happened to them.
But they are not executed, they are dead. They were executed, like a ball was kicked to score a goal.
So if the woman has to yeet the baby to execute the birthing process, why is there no goal post?
That is because birth is more like a handoff in US football than kicking a field goal.
The original usage was to carry out (a command). In that original sense it was the sentence, rather than the prisoner, who was executed; but the meaning got transferred over time.
In earlier days of computing people first became accustomed to computers "executing" the "instructions" they'd been programmed with. By the time anything resembling today's software executables came along that was the established word for the thing computers did.
The first definition of 'execute' on Merrium Webster is this:
To put into effect; carry out.
Which seems very in keeping with running a software command.
Transitive verb
Got to consider context. Whatever you do, do not look up the definition of "set", or "run".
So to execute a program is to start as execute a human is to...? 🤔
... end.
Is to carry out a death sentence.
Even if you don't accept the transference of a meaning from a euphemism to its own verb, you're surely not confused by other verbs that have multiple meanings.
When I "order" a hamburger, I'm not telling it to do anything.
Some words even mean the opposite of themselves sometimes.
It is what it is.
You ever heard the phrase: "Worked well in theory not execution"?
Poorly executed doesn't mean they had to slowly hack through someone's head because the guillotine was blunt lol
You have to understand the impact of euphemism, hypocrisy and modesty to language.
Example : at one point it was seen as obscene to talk about copulation, coit and fornication. So, for the houses where the king approved fornication, they simply created a modest acronym F.U.C.K. (short for : Fornication Under King's Consent) that later became itself seen as (of course) obscene.
Similarly at one point, long ago in history, it was seen as rude to tell a guard// servant// soldier to kill someone else and the euphemism chosen at the time was to say "execute" meaning "carry on" without saying what was to be carried on.
This word "execution" is being increasingly seen with that later "capital punishment" meaning ... this might be telling something of our preoccupations and/or obsessions.
Example : at one point it was seen as obscene to talk about copulation, coit and fornication. So, for the houses where the king approved fornication, they simply created a modest acronym F.U.C.K. (short for : Fornication Under King’s Consent) that later became itself seen as (of course) obscene.
I believe that theory has been debunked and 'fuck' is from low German, meaning 'to strike'.
Maybe you are right about the origin of fuck. Yet, I do believe language tend to be modified over time in the way I (tried to) described above.
