Penultimate

Cran, that's very cool.

What the hell does it mean?

 

My take: Say what you mean. If you try to be "erudite" or too highfalutin', I'm editing it and I'm telling you why I did it.

 

Wasn't there a crusty old scribe who once said, "Send them to the dictionary once every story."?

 

Next-to-last works for me.

Every now and then, I use a word in a story that I wouldn't think twice about using, and then my wife (who has a master's degree) tells me she's never heard that word and doesn't know what it means. I try not to use that word again, because I'm pretty sure she's smarter than a large percentage of our readers.

 

I'm from the same school. Problem is, sometimes I mean penultimate.

 

Then you are saying in a nutshell that you are smarter than your wife?

 

Damn, does this mean I can't use ``redoubtable?'' I love that word.

That's a huge problem. Too often writers throw in big words to show how smart they are -- and they use them wrong, proving exactly the opposite. Hell, it happens with everyday words all the time.

It means you're obviously not a desk guy.

 

You can't complain about the dumbing down of America on one hand and then argue over a perfectly useful, serviceable word.

Using "penultimate" doesn't mean you're trying to flaunt your erudition.

Maybe it's Bush's fault. He's been a shining beacon of idiocy for seven years now.

 

As always, context is everything.

You don't use it just to use it. That is simply being showy with language. You use it when it's the correct word to use.

The trick is knowing which is which.

 

The Weather Channel forecaster -- I forget her name, but she's one of two black women who get on camera, so it's Eboni Dean or the other one -- just used "penultimate" to describe tomorrow's third round of the Tour Championship. But the closed captioner typed it as ultimate. Not sure what if anything that proves. Other than that there's a chance Weather Channel forecasters read SportsJournalists.com. In which case, Stephanie Abrams' phone number pls kthx.

 

The closed captions get things wrong all the time, sometimes laughably so. I remember once watching some live event and someone said ``coffee.'' It came out on the closed captions as ``coughy.''