Penultimate

I just don't like the word penultimate. I never like reading it.

Hey douchebags, it was the eighth inning, or the third quarter.

 

There once was a man from Nantucket ...

God I suck at haiku.

 

YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG

 

I bet Curt Hennig never got a haiku wrong.

 

Meat -- If that's truly your belief, that's depressing as shit.

It is a newspaper's job to raise the LCD, if by nothing else than by modeling proper grammar and spelling on a daily basis.

 

Ehhh, Zeke, I dunno about that. If it was truly that, papers would be nothing but grammar and spelling tests on Monday, and provide the answer key on Tuesday. Raising the LCD can be a nice benefit, but it's still about fairly reporting the news with accuracy, simplicity, and grace. Sometimes it can be with daring and eloquence. That's not to say that simplicity necessarily means a 5th grade level of reading - sometimes simplicity can be the best word for the job.

Though I do disagree with Meat on one thing, and that is the implication that reporters and newspapers do not go into the business to NOT change the world*. The front page of a newspaper can be a powerful thing, even in this newspapers-down-the-tubes age. Yes yes, Jayson Blair and internet, yadda yadda. But if someone tries to tell me the Times or WSJ couldn't catalyze a major shake-up in some section of the world, that's bologna.

*I realize in retrospect this is probably not the major intent of Meat's point. Certainly papers should not have a certain slant at heart, with the aim of putting in certain news for a certain desired end. I should have just said newspapers can change the world, not that should be priority number one.

 

In this, the penultimate year of the Bush presidency, I have resigned myself to the belief that the stupids have clearly won.

 

Sadly, I fear you are correct.

Martin --

We've had this debate 'round these parts before, so I'll try and sum up my position quickly:

Words have no inherent meaning. Language is a fluid and evolving thing. Words can mean whatever anyone takes them to mean. There is no law against adding new words to the English language. I believe all those things to be good things, all told.

But language also isn't a democracy. There are authorities and rules are handed down. As such, newspapers are part of the long gray wall holding up the level of discourse -- along with English teachers and the folks at the OED, etc. I'm not entirely comfortable with that. But without it, we're left with Babel. It might not be the primary purpose of newspapers, but you shouldn't discount it, either, because in the long run it's a lot more important than who won last night's game.

 

Zeke, yeah, I see your point. I think I misread your first post on it...not a good intellectual day here. As a side note, the evolution of the English language - both formal and popular - is fascinating.

 

For version 1.0 of this debate, please see the "pyrrhic victory" thread:

http://www.sportsjournalists.com/forum/threads/36732/

 

Big difference: Pyrrhic is a nice crisp word that encapsulates a lot in two syllables. Penultimate is a flabby word that is one syllable longer than "next to last." Really, I didn't mean this to be a diatribe against fancier words, just against a false fancy one that is laughably used. That the thread has gotten this long and this passionate has shocked me. I thought it'd be my usual "10 posts and gone to Page 2" thread.

 

My point re: it not being our job to raise the LCD comes down to intent. If we do the job we're hired to do, change should be an obvious effect. If you're going in with a "gotta make the world a better place" mindset, it's going to negatively impact you in the area you're going to do the most good -- clean, thorough and impartial writing and reporting -- because you're more likely to see good journalism as a vehicle and not the destination, and your focus is fractured. There's a difference, although admittedly a subtle one tantamount to splitting a flea's short hairs, between doing journalism in an effort to improve the land and trying to improve the land through journalism. One is natural, the other forced. Again, intent.

Now as for the use of the high-dollar words in typical newspaper stories: if we're using pyrrhic victory and penultimate as the litmus test between smart and durh, then I think we're defining intelligence a little too narrowly. Rarely, if ever, does the use of common words in place of more obscure and awkward ones spark a revolt among our brightest. The issue with pyrrhic victory was that it was potentially a confusing reference to a lot of our readers. The issue with penultimate is two-fold -- it's not a word a strong majority can identify and understand, and it's one that 99 times out of 100 does nothing to add to a story's flow or impact, and if anything it clunks like a rusty trombone's first note during a flourish of harps.

One more note: if you're of the belief that penultimate is a proper general-use term for next-to-last, do you also use ultimate as a synonym for last?