Earlier this week, the Word Nerd was writing a piece for work and wanted to use the word penultimate, assuming that it meant absolutely ultimate or that nothing can beat it. Fortunately, the Word Nerd used the trusty Canadian Oxford Dictionary to double check the spelling and learned that penultimate actually means the last but one as in the penultimate act of a play (the second last act). The dictionary actually notes that a common mistake is to think that penultimate means absolutely ultimate (so the Word Nerd is in good company).
The Word Nerd can’t find how this mistake was originally made or why it is so common. Language certainly changes over time so maybe the mistake will become the new meaning; however, until the mistake is recognized in the dictionary as being an acceptable meaning — stick to ultimate when you mean something is unsurpassable.
Fun fact for you: Penultimate is the second-to-last, right? The one before that is the ANTEpenultimate. So if a book has 10 chapters, chapter 8 is the antepenultimate, chapter 9 is the penultimate and chapter 10 is the ultimate. Fun, right? My voice teacher taught me that
Wow! Meg, you are nerdier than the Word Nerd! I will have to look into the etymology of these words.
” My life’s been battered and torn, I’m shaking, and in need of reform. ”
This the line I typed into Microsoft Word, and it says the word “have” should replace “of”?…. any feed back?