What is the noun that we should properly use for the process by which a person becomes disfellowshiped?
I have tried to find out about this because, in reading Andrew Holden's book about Jehovah's Witnesses I came across some jarring phrases, such as "John was fornicator well before his disfellowship, and continued so thereafter". I have never heard a Jehovah's Witness use "disfellowship" as a noun thus, and I suspect that the witnesses Andrew Holden spoke with did not speak so either. He no doubt intuitively assumed that "disfellowship" must be the noun for the process.
I searched the CD to see what noun form the society uses, and I found that it has changed over the years. In the fifties they were prone to talk about "disfellowshipment", in the eighties they talked about "the disfellowshipping" and in more recent literature they have avoided the problem altogether by using substitutory phrases such as "before he was disfellowshipped" - but I have never come across the society using "disfellowship" as a noun.
Which brings me to another point - do witnesses in (sorry Witnesses) in the UK use one p or two ps in "disfellowshipped"?
Such a complicated and fascinating subject.