Extinction vs accuracy

Anne Kilmer viceroy at gate.net
Tue Jan 16 11:13:48 EST 2001


>
> You are quite correct about the recent technical misuse of the term.
> Perhaps it is time to step back and reflect on the utility of jargonistic
> re-definitions running away with the language. I shall restate the idea
> from my last communication - a vanished local population does not make an
> extinct species. Only the vanished last local population makes an extinct
> species. Most species have become extinct. All species will eventually
> become extinct.
> ............Chris Durden
>
This is true. It is not the scientists, but the poets who create the
language (ha ha) and, argue though you may, we will bury you.
A handful of scientists will not decide the meaning of a word, unless
they made it up in the first place. Extinct does not mean somewhat
extinct, mostly extinct, extinct on Thursday mornings, or extinct in my
back yard. it means all gone, all over the globe, there are no more of
this unique creature who has no relations (doddammit) with identical DNA
but brown fluffy eyebrows or some such.
(Shall I explain the word unique? I once had to kill a reporter who
maintained the case for "almost unique" and who happened to be smaller
than I. Or was it "somewhat unique". )
You can't be somewhat unique any more than you can be somewhat dead.
That goes double for extinct.
Perhaps the works cited require correction? I'm with Chris.
I'm tired of bearing a banner mourning the untimely demise of something
that in fact just moved across the street. I want my fights to be about
something real, that I care about.
I care deeply, madly, hopelessly about habitat destruction. I see it
happen all around me, and I mourn, I mourn.
And I am not comforted by the inclusion of bugs that fly for two weeks,
and nobody has looked (thank you, Leroy) for the adjectival
caterpillars.
Call this a millennium? I scoff at your millennium. I want all this
fixed, now, today.
 
> >ps The US president select is one of the most embarrassing figures in all of
> >our nation's presidential history.
snip
>
> Ok, so more than half of us did not choose him! We shall have to live with
> this situation for the next four years. Then maybe more people will vote.
>
> Well, achshully, more than half of us *did* choose him, never mind the uncounted ballots. Remember the Electoral College?
But this sort of thing always happens in three-nought years. This year,
I'm sure everything will be much better. (Is it time for my medication,
nurse?)
Anne Kilmer
South Florida
 
 
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