In Roman times, if a legion displeased the emperor They would have to pick stones out of a bag, ten of which were painted white. The ten who picked the white stones would be stones by the others. As a legion was a hundred men, this meant one in ten were killed, hence, decimation.

There are twelve housemates. If Big Brother means to decimate them, then they will be evicting 1 full housemate and 2/10 of another. Who will they select to lose a body part?

They're probably going to stones Jayne to death.

Chelsea plus Chelsea's hair

Those are the roots of the word, but that's not the contemporary meaning of decimate. In this case, it just means that a large number of housemates will be removed.

Unless... there's some sort of Ancient Rome/etymological pedantry task.

Maybe they'll be a bit gutted or slightly devastated at being quite decimated.

Body part = Chelsea's big bollocks

I give another vote to Chelsea's huge bollocks,

Chelseas finger because he could kill someone with just that one don't you know...

I concur. It would appear that Chelsea's parts are interchangeable and removable by design.

remove Chelsea's hair would be cheating, as he has a replacement in his knicker drawer next to his dentures

I agree. Decimate is much misused

Oh, and meant to thank you. I did not know that.

BB forum is so edumacational.

I think there will be such a task and Andy will be the beaming winner.

Andy would explode with incandescent rage if he had to suffer the injustice of Ancient Rome, imagine it?

The Latin for twelve is duodecim. So in this particular instance at least, the term should really be "duodecimate."

It's one of those expressions like "damp squid" "reign in" or "nine to the dozen" which, eventually, people get tired of correcting. See "Would of - triumph of the thickos".

Time to give up the goat, JayDee.

Humor, dear. You should try it.