When some guy on your cruise ship jumps in the water and gets his head cut off by a the boat propeller everyone screams “Oh my god he was BEHEADED!” He was BEheaded? I have a problem with this word. The prefix “be-” can mean a few different things. For example the word “befeather” means to cover in feathers. So “beheading” should mean covering someone in heads. If you’re removing a head from someone then that should obviously just be called a “deheading.” Deheading can’t mean anything else. Everyone would know what you meant when you said “Frank got deheaded.” If you say “Frank got beheaded” who knows maybe it means a voodoo witch doctor gave him a necklace of shrunken skulls to wear at a dinner party. Technically that would constitute being “beheaded.”
The fact that “deheaded” isn’t even a word is preposterous. When someone gets their head cut off it’s called a “decapitation.” I don’t see where people decided to all of a sudden switch things up there. It’s right there in front of you. DEcapitaiton = DEheading. It’s not a Becapitation. This is one of those instances where English gets excessive. “Capitation” means “a numbering or accessing by head.” So when you’re DEcapitated that means your head is lopped off and you’re no longer counted as part of the population because you’re dead or DEceased. You’re not BEceased. Deheading should be the word we use. Case closed.
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| The only way "Beheading" makes sense is if you're referring to the audience. Then when the head flies off into the crowd, the people are BEstowed with a head. |
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