Well, my well worn copy of the Oxford American Dictionary disagrees. But I can’t fault Bill for anything that Merria,-Webster agrees with him on, even if they are wrong.
Perhaps Bill paid them off…
“Extincted”? Sounds like trying to wash out a bad hair dye or something. I believe the word you were looking for was probably “exterminated” but even “extinguished” would have worked.
Wildest Bill, please tell me English is not you native language or, at least, that you post under the influence of strong drugs (which would also explain other things I’ve been wondering about).
The OP annoyed me so much it made me forget the mosquito which had been bugging me for a while…
BTW, "mosquito"is a Spanish word meaning “small fly”. People who spell it “mesquito” should be executed without undue delay.
This is interesting… the OP’s title has a 55.6% failure rate, yet it still maintains a semantic completeness.
I am totally in awe.
Fryer, are you being serious? You think mosquitoes would respond that quickly?
I was so amused with the tital, I just had to give my respects. WB, you have a very colorful idea of what the English language is. Thank you.
With respect to the OP, there are few perfect spellers in the world, myself certainly being included. Why the flaming?
Back to the subject at hand, we have learned how important the lowly mosquito is to the world, now how about something else that bothers people and seems to have no use…gnats? Can we get rid of them? Annoying little bastards.
**Erislover wrote:
Fryer, are you being serious? You think mosquitoes would respond that quickly?**
Yes, I’m serious. Enviromental changes are the driving force behind evolution. If the enviroment (for mosquitos) changed that quickly and radically then natural evolution would be given a huge boost. Look at the same situation with the new “super bugs;” strains of various microorganisms that were once immune to various drugs, but now aren’t and even hardier than before.
**festiva76 wrote:
With respect to the OP, there are few perfect spellers in the world, myself certainly being included. Why the flaming?**
It isn’t so much flaming as WB’s colorful use of English. We’ve always kidded him about it before but this time, using the adjective extinct as a verb is too priceless.
Ummmm…that would be TITLE. Somehow I must of extincted my brain.
The proper rendering of the verb form of the concept in question is presumably “to render extinct” or “to cause to become extinct.” “Extinguish” or “exterminate” have acquired senses that would lead the unwary reader astray-- a bad thing to do.
“To extinct” sounds like perfectly good coinage to me: especially when one considers such possibilities as “to extinctify” or “to extinctualize.”
The Dictionary was made for Man, folks, not Man for the Dictionary.
>> … amused with the tital …
I am not sure if it is more correct to say you ara a tital man or a breastal man…
>> Ummmm…that would be TITLE. Somehow I must of extincted my brain.
“of” what? Now I am confused. did you mean titless? 
Geez, I thought MY grammar was bad.
Kill 'em all! I’ll live with the consequences, thank you.
Heck. I want all the bees gone.
I think bees are necessary for pollination. Also, they make honey.
>> “To extinct” sounds like perfectly good coinage to me: especially when one considers such possibilities as “to extinctify” or “to extinctualize.”
>> “Extinguish” or “exterminate” have acquired senses that would lead the unwary reader astray-- a bad thing to do.
Oh? So if I talked about exterminating mosquitos how might someone be led astray? How may that be misunderstood?
We do. It’s called a “Preview” button. Doesn’t that option appear on your screen?
Damn. Now I gotta make sure I preview this post…
Well, “exterminating” has the connotation of removing them only from one specific area. Like how we exterminate pests from houses. If you asked if we could exterminate mosquitoes then I would guess that you meant in your local area. Now, if we are talking about non-vermin here, then “exterminated” would have a different connotation. If I said I wanted to exterminate mountain gorillas then it would me clearer that I wanted to kill every last one.
“Extincted” sounds awful, but it is pretty clear, meaning “to make extinct”. There really isn’t a single word out there that means exactly what WB was trying to say. Verbing weirds language, but we keep adding new verbs this way.
Lemur, maybe we speak diffirent dialects. webster’s does not support your usage though:
As you can see you have a range of words to choose from before resorting to “extincting”. Let’s face it, the title of the thread would be quite unacceptable to an English teacher if a schoolkid wrote it.
Eradicate, eliminate, get rid of, make extinct, or wipe out would have all worked.
But, honestly, I come to bury Bill, not to criticise him
You meant to say they should be extincted, didn’t you?
Wow, 37 posts and I thought that many would have something constructive to say.
It’s kind of interesting that the bulk of a GQ thread can be concerned with the spelling of the title.
It’s not like we all didn’t know exactly what he meant.
This is turning into the electronic equivalent of small-talk.
Of course I probably spelled something wrong and it’s going to take five people and twenty replies to correct me.
**Have you ever stopped reading a post because someone spelled something wrong?
Have you ever stopped reading a post because finding something interesting would have required sifting through twenty comments on the spelling of a word?
[I thought I’d posted this yesterday, but it doesn’t seem to be here.]
I seem to remember reading that there are some Rocky Mtn plants that mosquitos pollinate. Don’t remember their names.
And there is another way to get rid of a species of bugs besides dumping vast quantities of DDT into the environment. We’ve been doing it for years to eradicate the screwworn fly from the New World: http://www.aphis.usda.gov/oa/screwworm.html