Penultimate

It's the next-to-last thing I want to see in a story (other than calling an innocent person guilty). It's newspaper-ese that a huge chunk of readership doesn't know the meaning of. It doesn't show sophistication, it shows stuffiness. If it's the last thing, or next-to-last thing I do, I hope to persuade you to expunge it when you see it.

 

WCW should have called Renegade the Penultimate Warrior

 

That reminds me of the worst wrestling gimmick ever: One Warrior Nation. Ultimate and some jobber were the only members.

 

It wasn't just some jobber! It was ... I'll be damned if I can remember what he was calling himself by this point, but it was Brutus "The Zodiac Furface Butcher Barber Disciple Clipmaster Booty Man" Beefcake! But yeah, the whole thing was pretty damned lame.

 

Again, proud that I didn't quite have it totally right.

 

And I could gladly go on all day showing why Meat is still a virgin , but back to the topic: Anyone care to defend penultimate?

 

I will defend penultimate


Right after I get done defending TJ Simers

 

Hey hey hey. Wrestling knowledge doesn't even crack the Billboard Hot 100 for reasons I'm a virgin. Not even on the bubbling under chart. It may be around 35 on the Adult Contemporary list, but I don't have it in front of me.

And penultimate is as elegant and appropriate as a tuxedo t-shirt.

 

We had an intern use it, and use it wrong.

I've been in the biz a decade, and I didn't know the meaning. I had to look it up. And the intern was wrong.

I agree, most readers don't know the word.

Hell, I was once told to "write for an eighth grade reading level because that's the average grasp of the readers."

 

Wow, you learn something new everyday.

 

From dictionary.com

pe·nul·ti·mate

–adjective
1. next to the last: the penultimate scene of the play.
2. of or pertaining to a penult.
–noun
3. a penult.

pe·nul·ti·mate
adj. Next to last.
n. The next to the last.

 

Got that right.

Throwing foreign phrases -- especially Latin and French -- into a newspaper story bugs me the same way. Magazine stories, too.