Tinguished is wrong in any case, if we're taking this seriously: both distinguish and extinguish are from the Latin stinguo, meaning 'prick, mark off' in one case and 'extinguish, quell' in the other. (A bit puzzling that, but Lewis & Short seem to think they're the same.)

Interesting - it would appear, given the Latin root, that, in the case of extinguish, a consonant drift has occurred, (either "estingish" or "exstinguish") while it has not in the case of distinguished.

We see examples of this tendency all the time. How many times have you heard "escape" pronounced "excape", for instance? Eventually, it will probably become "excape". [Emoticon for "I hear the dark forces of linguistic conservatism gathering"].


The idiot also known as Capfka ...