today's verbing

[Arnold Zwicky]

of the adjective "extinct".  comment on www.informationweek.com of
11/20/08 story "Woolly Mammoth Genome Sequenced":

wooly mexicans
commented on Nov 20, 2008 1:10:41 AM

bring back the wooly mammoth, extinct the mexicans.

.....

this is the transitive verb "extinct" 'make extinct'.  the OED has it
in a number of senses, all extinct; the last cites (in any sense) are
from the 17th c.  not in NOAD2 or AHD4.

but it's certainly alive (again) today; huge number of hits for the
passive, but some active ones too. many of the references are to the
extinction of species:

   Why are tigers extincted? ... There are three main reasons for the
extinction of the tigers.
www2.hawaii.edu/~sprill/Tiger.htm

   Birds Extincted since Audubon's time
www.audubon.org/bird/BoA/ExtinctBirds.html

   Dodos question: When did the dodo bird get extincted?
wiki.answers.com/Q/When_did_the_dodo_bird_get_extincted

   Discussion on 'Who started to extinct the elephants?''
wiki.answers.com/Q/Discuss:Who_started_to_extinct_the_elephants

   That catastrophe was practically almost enough to extinct the
species.
zonaeuropa.com/20061130_1.htm

plus some metaphorical extensions:

   Extincted Cartoons
You are looking at the "extincted" cartoon page from the CartoonStock
directory
www.cartoonstock.com/directory/e/extincted.asp

   Extincted Gaming
forums.clantemplates.com/showthread.php?goto=newpost&t=138296

   Bush Plans to Extinct the Endangered Species Act. [language play]
www.propeller.com/groups/wildlife/conversations/view/1836130/

   The process of restructuring is to extinct the undesired responses
of the organization.
management.corporatemanagementsolution.com/olh.html

arnold

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