RE: What's the word for this specialty in paleontology?

[Nick Pharris <npharris@umich.edu>]

Quoting John Scanlon <riversleigh@outbackatisa.com.au>:

> Because the idea of 'extinction' in anything like the modern sense is
> relatively young (Cuvier?) there is probably not a snappy, authentically
> classical Greek word to use. But why not Modern?  Going to
> http://www.translatum.gr/ (only the first free online translation site I
> found) and typing in 'extinction' gets a word I transliterate as 'exaleipse'
> (extinction of a race = exaleipse phyles), so what you're looking for would
> be exaleipsology.

Well, actually, this does come from a Classical Greek source, 
*eksaleiphein* 'to plaster over, wipe out, obliterate'.  *Eksaleipsis* 
would then be 'the act of wiping out, obliteration', which would indeed 
yield "exaleipsology" (or "exalipsology", since Greek ei is commonly 
rendered with a long i in Latin).  The study of ancient extinctions 
would be "pal(a)e(o)exal(e)ipsology", which would be quite a mouthful, 
no matter which of the vowels you chose to include.

--
Nick Pharris
Department of Linguistics
University of Michigan

"Creativity is the sudden cessation of stupidity."
    --Edwin H. Land