2020-11-25
ศัพท์ น่าสับสน ชุด P – Penultimate & penult
แนะนำการใช้ ตามที่ส่วนใหญ่ใช้ แต่ละท้องถิ่น
ความหมาย อาจผันแปร ตาม ตำแหน่ง/หน้าที่ ในประโยค
Dictionary.com
ออกเสียง Penultimate = ‘pi-NUHL-tuh-mit’
ออกเสียง Penult = ‘PEE-nuhlt’ or ‘pi-NUHLT’
Dictionary.com
Penultimate
Did You Know?
Penultimate isn't the last word in words for things that are next to last. There is a pair of noun synonyms
that are used commonly enough
to have gained entry into abridged dictionaries: penult and penultima. Although all three can refer to something that's next to last,
penult and penultima are usually a bit more specific;
they are used most often to identify the next to last syllable of a word.
All three derive from paenultima, a Latin root from paene ("almost") and ultima ("last"). You may occasionally hear the word penultimate used as an intensified version of ultimate,
as in "a race they've called 'the penultimate challenge.'"
This use isn't typically found in edited prose, however-or in dictionaries.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Words at Play
The Last Word on 'Penultimate'
Many people use 'penultimate' to mean “the very last” or “the very best.” They’re wrong.
If you hear someone say “that pizza was the penultimate”
or “my uncle is the penultimate gift-giver,”
you could think from the context
that penultimate means “the very best.”
It sounds like it means “the super-ultimate” or the “extra-ultimate,”
as in the very last, very latest, or very best thing.
But penultimate means “next to last” or “second to last.”
It’s probably because it adds an emphatic
extra syllable to the word ultimate
that people think it somehow means “more” than ultimate
—but it really means less.
Used correctly, you can say “the penultimate scene of a play”
or “the penultimate line of a poem”
or “the film’s penultimate shot.”
It’s a formal or literary way of saying “next to last.”
The word ultimate itself comes from the Latin word
for “last, final, or farthest.”
The pen- part of penultimate
is simply the Latin prefix that means “almost,”
so the word literally means “almost last.”
There’s also the word penult (pronounced PEE-nult),
which means “the next-to-last member of a series,”
or “the next to last syllable of a word.”
In the word presentation,
for example, the accent or stress is on the penult.
Another related word is antepenultimate
(pronounced an-tih-pih-NUL-tuh-mut),
which means “the third from the end.”
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Our (Almost) Final Word on 'Penultimate'
The ultimate guide to using penultimate.
What to Know
People confuse penultimate and ultimate
believing the prefix "pen-" simply adds more emphasis
to the word "ultimate."
This is not the case,
the "pen-' prefix means "almost"
and thus "penultimate" means "next to last."
"Ultimate" is a much more flexible word
that can be "last," "fundamental," "utmost," and more.
Many people confuse penultimate with ultimate,
as though the former word was formed by
adding an intensifying prefix to an existing word,
a prefix whose only purpose was to indicate
"this is that word that I meant to use, but much more so."
Alas, while it would be very nice to have a word or prefix that we could carry around with us that would make the colors brighter, food taste more flavorful, and give words an additional feeling of heft,
that is not the role of the pen- in penultimate;
it is simply a prefix, which in Latin carried the meaning of "almost."
Misuse of Penultimate
While penultimate has an extremely limited range of meanings
(it always refers to the next-to-last of something)
ultimate can mean a number of different things, ranging from "fundamental, basic" to "utmost" to "farthest."
There is a considerable amount of evidence of penultimate being mistakenly used to mean all of these things.
The penultimate insult to my dad's world view was the portrayal of fathers on television. —Ray Smit, Parksville-Qualicum News (Parksville, BC), 17 Feb. 2012
This particular lady lived for ten years or so after making this thundering observation. As was her way, she managed to cram a pile of living into her penultimate days.—Charles McCabe, The Charleston News and Courier (Charleston, SC), 22 Apr. 1973
An enormous on-stage battle pits an army of monkeys against an army of giants in a penultimate struggle between good and evil. —Daniel Burstein, The Christian Science Monitor, 9 Feb. 1982
Those expenses were followed by an embarrassing expenditure of $16,000 to fly and house Reid's Richmond based campaign manager back and forth to Victoria (which prompted Reid to announce she won't be doing this anymore) and finally, the penultimate embarrassment of the involvement of the RCMP in security upgrades to Reid's constituency office, to the tune of $79,000 (exactly how was her kitchenette and washroom made more secure during these renovations?). —Sharon Hales, Richmond News (Richmond, BC), 1 Oct. 2014
Keeping Penultimate and Ultimate Separate
So how do you go about differentiating between ultimate and penultimate?
Well, you could just remember that they are different words,
which have different meanings,
the same way you remember to
not say you feel pensive when you feel ebullient,
but what's the fun in that?
You could instead try to remember that
penultimate is very similar to the penultimatum.
A penultimatum is the demand you give right before the ultimatum
("a final proposition, condition, or demand").
Are there actually such things as penultimatums?
Yes, although the word is fairly rare,
and has typically been used in a jocular fashion over the past several hundred years.
The wits who used penultimatum
often will also throw in antepenultimatum
(the demand before the demand before the time you really mean it).
It is whispered that the last messenger to the court of Spain carried the Antipenultimatum of the British minister; that the Penultimatum will be sent about Christmas next; and that, when the spring shall be so far advanced as to permit a junction between the fleets of Spain and France to those of Russia and Sweden, the real Ultimatum will be dispatched. —The Pennsylvania Gazette, 5 Jan. 1791
He had read the papers with care, and he had not found that the Dual Note, which he would not call the ultimatum, but the penultimatum (a laugh) was sent at the instance of the Chamber of Notables. —The Times (London, UK), 28 Jul. 1882
But M. Delyannis knows as well as we do that the first steps towards these things—retirement from the frontier, change of tone in speeches, and so forth—could be done not only within eight days, but within eight hours, and that he has only got to make such a beginning, and honestly follow it up, in order to satisfy the demands of the ultimatum—to be exact, of the penultimatum, which, for aught we know, will find itself an antepenultimatum before long—and to terminate or begin the termination of the whole matter. —The Saturday Review (London, UK), 8 May, 1886
Should the attempt to introduce obscure polysyllabic words
into your vocabulary somehow not manage to help you distinguish between penultimate and ultimate
you could instead remember that while there are a number of words in English with a prefix that either intensifies the meaning
or changes it very little
(habitable/inhabitable, valuable/invaluable, and yes, regardless/irregardless)
this number is small, and does not include any words beginning with pen.
And in case you were wondering what penultimate looks like when used correctly,
here is an example:
I don't know. Sometimes you lie and then you call it art.
The man said 'Are you working on a novel?'
and I said, YES, O YES, YES I AM, YES.
And he said 'I hope it's one of your Inspector McMillan novels.
I just love his jutting jaw, and the way he solves it on the penultimate page, leaving the last page free for recipes —Ian McMillan,
Death's Feet (from Dad, the Donkey's on Fire), 1994
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Penultimate
Copy editors all feel aghast
When penultimate's used to mean "last";
“It's the one that's before, And your use we abhor When employing it thusly, half-assed.”
No, the pen- at the beginning of penultimate is not an intensifier;
it comes from a Latin prefix meaning "almost."
Penultimate refers to the thing that is next to last,
rather than the one that is last (or ultimate).
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Penultimate
Perhaps the cheeriest word of note this past week
(and this tells you a bit about what sort of week it was)
was penultimate, defined as “next to the last.”
The word was primarily used on Monday,
in articles about the episode of the HBO show Game of Thrones,
which the previous night had aired its penultimate episode.
The penultimate episode of “Game of Thrones,” titled “The Bells,” has posted the highest ratings in series history. — Will Thorne, Variety (variety.com), 14 May, 2019
In addition to “next to the last,”
penultimate may mean “of or relating to the next to the last syllable of a word.”
The word for “the third syllable of a word counting from the end”
(such as surd in absurdity) is antepenultimate.
And the word for the one before that
(the ab in absurdity) is preantepenultimate.
And that’s enough syllabification for this week.
Common Errors In English Usage Dictionary
Penultimate & next to last
To confuse your readers,
use the term “penultimate,” which means “next to last,”
but which most people assume means “the very last.”
And if you really want to baffle them,
use “antepenultimate” to mean “third from the end.”
Many people also mistakenly use “penultimate”
when they mean “quintessential” or “archetypical.”
