Execute is one of those wonderful words that shows just how downright bizarre and glorious the English language is. It’s a word that means it’s own opposite.

Think about it for a moment.

If you execute a program, you start it; but if you execute a person……… You’re ahead of me, right?

Execute means to begin something, and to end something. It’s both, depending on what you’re executing. If it’s a thing, it starts (a program or a will, for example); if it’s a living being (a criminal, a US president – ok, same thing)  then it’s life is ended.

Execute: it’s the alpha and omega. The beginning and the end.

That also means an Executive and an Executioner are exactly the same thing. They both execute things.

Ain’t language grand?

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