The Canary Islands aren't named after any birds. A light-year isn't a unit of time. And panmixia is, well, nothing to do with mixing things in a pan. These are red-herring words that appear to mislead us in the beginning but if we look deeper, everything becomes obvious.
The Canary Islands got their name from dogs (Latin canis); canaries are named after the islands! A light-year is a unit of distance (how far light can travel in a year). This week we'll see a few more words in this category -- words that aren't what they appear to be. panmixia (pan-MIK-see-uh) noun Random breeding (without regard to selecting a partner with particular traits) within a population. Also known as panmixis. [From Greek pan- (all) + mixis (mixing). Ultimately from the Indo-European root meik- (to mix) that's also the source of mix, miscellaneous, meddle, medley, promiscuous, melee, and mustang.] -Anu Garg (garg wordsmith.org) "The panmixia hypothesis -- that all European eels migrate to the Sargasso Sea of reproduction and comprise a single, randomly mating population -- is widely accepted." Thierry Wirth and Louis Bernatchez; Genetic Evidence Against Panmixia in the European Eel; Nature (London, UK): Feb 22, 2001. This newsletter is made possible in part by these sponsors: Lots of great words, but where to keep them? KeyText, a boilerplate text tool for Windows, stores & types them for you. Free to try! http://keytext.com/wd1 Always find the right word with the Visual Thesaurus. Wordsmith readers save 10%. Try it free! http://www.visualthesaurus.com/?code=4p7&ad=aw ............................................................................ Be civil to all, sociable to many, familiar with few, friend to one, enemy to none. -Benjamin Franklin, statesman, author, and inventor (1706-1790) Discuss this week's words on our bulletin board: http://wordsmith.org/board Remove, change address, gift subs: http://wordsmith.org/awad/subscriber.html Pronunciation: http://wordsmith.org/words/panmixia.wav http://wordsmith.org/words/panmixia.ram Permalink: http://wordsmith.org/words/panmixia.html This message was sent to "[email protected]".
