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On 11/13/2015 12:25 PM, Duncan wrote: |
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> Alexander Berntsen posted on Fri, 13 Nov 2015 13:17:28 +0100 as excerpted: |
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> |
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>> On 12/11/15 16:00, Michał Górny wrote: |
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>>> their generation should be run as the lask task done by egencache, |
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>>> followed only by timestamp update. |
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> |
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>> Is "lask" supposed to be "last"? Also, "last except not last" is not |
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>> very good English. The word you seem to be looking for is "penultimate". |
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>> (Which would make the "only" redundant.) |
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> |
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> FWIW, while "penultimate" is unarguably correct, it's also in some |
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> regional dialects (US at least) rather rare and high-register, and is in |
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> fact a newish (within the year, and I'm nearing 50) addition to my own |
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> vocabulary. |
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> |
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> The more common wording I'm far more familiar with, to the point of |
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> defining penultimate in terms of it in "the dictionary in my head", is |
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> "next-to-last". |
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> |
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> [After checking...] Wictionary seems to agree, saying penultimate is |
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> British, in US it's considered formal/literary/scholarly, what I termed |
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> high register. It defines penultimate in terms of next to last (or more |
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> archaic, last but one, tho in the US that's now seen as a Britishism too, |
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> see usage notes) as well. (Meanwhile, I seriously can't picture /anyone/ |
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> using "propreantepenultimate" except as a joke!) |
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> |
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|
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There's a nice little discussion here: |
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|
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http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/58959/is-penultimate-commonly-used |
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I haven't seen penultimate used much. "Next to last" is much more common |
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in my experience. |
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-- |
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Thanks, |
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Zac |
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