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Not to argue with Alex over in W & F, but I think *this is the funniest discussion we've had in a long time! Welcome to you, birdfeed, by the way.
Here's what Atomica gives for antepenultimate: Coming before the next to the last in a series. That seems pretty clear to me. (It went to Google for pre-, and there wasn't anything clearer that I saw than what's already here.) My opinion is that if you accept 'next to the last' as being what we normally think of it as--say the letter Y in the alphabet, that when you say third from the last, you cannot THEN decide that Z is not, after all, the last.
Possibly the word 'the' is adding to the confusion: next to last (why do I want to hyphenate that?), third to last, etc., seem a little clearer.
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I was thinking more about this on my walk tonight (woe is me)--I think it's the word from or to that changes things. Ww had a good point about ordinals. consider a set of 5 steps: a b c d e. a is the first step, c is the third step, e is the last. you could also make the case that c is the third last and d is the second last. but when you throw "from" in there, you are implying a count (to my way of thinking) so that c is second from (the) last.
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I dont' think we have any confusion about what antepenultimate means, Jackie.
And Dub' I think you've given me supporting evidence for my contention that "third from the last" is ambiguous. I don't see how switching between cardinal and ordinal numbers should change anything. And whether "third from the last" refers to the antepenultimate or the preantepenultimate depends on whether you do your counting by counting items or counting moves. To me the use of the word "from" implies that you are counting moves. The last item is zeroth from the last, i.e., it is the last item. You might wait a while for your folks to forget* or pick some other random couple and ask them which is first from the last. At the risk of being accused of reinyartation® I say: It's ambiguous. The hell with it.
Ha! Then you'll be accused not only of not having better things to do, but of being obsessive about your trivialities.
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Ah, Faldage, but they're mine, and there are other spirits roving about who share 'em, and you're one of 'em, too. Thought I existed by myself [professional linguists aside] in this world of wondering how words worked till Sept. 30, 2001, when I came upon by chance the lot of you here. Let me explain as simply as I can what I meant by the ordinal/cardinal comment. When we were counting using ordinal numbers, the operation was fairly simple, though ambiguous for some here. I use my parents again as an example. I simply put to them, with no preparation, the question "What is the third from last number?" The careful analysis you've given of the meaning of "from" didn't throw them. They simply began their count from back/first position to third position back and easily arrived at what I'd easily arrived at--all three of us easily understanding the terms used in tsuwm's definition he quoted, the one that had given him pause for thought. Now let's take a look at your language in which you switched from ordinal to cardinal numbers: In reply to:
You're at the last one. That'll be the ultimate. Count one forward from the last.
You're now at the penultimate. Now count two forward from the last one. Where
are you now?
Well, you see, by having us "count one forward" we entered a new counting game. You gave us the starting position ("the last one"), implied that wasn't included in the count, and then went on to instruct us how to set the count. But I don't think we normally think your way. I don't think we normally think, "OK. I'm now going to count forward (actually backwards) one from the last, and then on to two..." etc. When we see lists and rows and are considering positions, I think we naturally think in ordinal numbers to determine these positions.
I think instead that if someone asks us which number is third from last, we immediately think ordinally (if that's an adverb) and immediately count, "First, second, third." Easy operation. Done quickly as my aged parents did quickly. And I don't think the thought occurred to them, "What is the true meaning of 'from'?"
The reason I think this may have been the case for them, at least, is we're accustomed to phrases that include the last place as the place to begin to move. And I also believe we naturally count these positions as ordinal, not cardinal, numbers.
Consider a list of numbers:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Which one is third from the bottom? Most of us would say "5." I don't think anyone would say, "Which is the third from last" in a vertical list of numbers. It has something to do with what is customarily applied. A list runs vertically: we naturally refer to something we want to identify at the bottom as "third" from the bottom and possibly "third from the end." However, if I were looking at the list and had to identify the third from last number, I'd still identify "five" as the number. I do not think I'd move into the use of cardinal numbers in my speaking or thinking and say to myself, "Count one forward (or upward or backward)" etc. I don't think that's how we naturally think in these cases. I think we've been trained to express such positions in ordinal numbers--and that's how we express ourselves in cases in which we're indentifying positions in a row or a line, even if we're referring to a very large list, such as class rank: "She graduated 122nd in her class."
So this morning I think our different points of view are based on how we interpret the word from when used with the word last.
For me, consistently, in looking at a horizontal arrangement of numbers and items, the phrase "third from last" is immediately apparent as what we are now referring to as the antepenultimate position. And I suspect that for many people this would be true, too. And I additionally suspect that the situation becomes problematical for those who get hung up on the "from last" relationship and begin to analyze that relationship right out of existence: It shouldn't be used because it's ambiguous, they believe. Well, it's ambiguous to those who analyze it to death, but it's not ambiguous to those for whom phrases such as "third from the bottom" and "third from the end" are clear. "Third from last" simply becomes as an equivalent type phrase--it takes on the same meaning through association without studied over-analysis.
We use ordinal numbers for determination of positions regularly, just as we use cardinal numbers for determination of quantity. And that's why I found your switching from counting by ordinal to cardinal numbers awkward and unnatural in the situation tsuwm has posed.
Best regards as always,
WW
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Yo Mama seems to disagree with you.
It's ambiguous...
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>this is the funniest discussion we've had in a long time!
one other thing to note about this thread: it points out a flaw in the Stales Index. when the same three people read and post repeatedly, it skews the SI rather inordinately.
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read and post repeatedly Uh, didn't you mean riposte, my friend? 
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Pooh-Bah
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Consider a long, continuous line of coloured squares: the green squares are followed immediately by the red squares, which are followed by the blue squares, etc, etc.
I ask you to place a counter on a red square, the second from the last.
Would you ut the counter on the same square if I asked you to place it on the red square, second from the end?
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Answer: Yes, I would.
Second from last and second from the end of the red squares are both the same.
Now I know there is an exceptional case to all of this, but I'm not going to go there yet because I'm trying to let tsuwm see how everyday people think of phrases, such as:
third from last
third from the end
third from the bottom
...as eqivalent expressions of ordinal positions.
I ran a very interesting test yesterday. My kids are listening to "Peter and the Wolf" this week. Part of their preparation is reviewing the woodwind family we have been taking a look at the entire first grading period of school as the ten-minute orchestral part of their lesson I include for all grade levels, kindergarten through fifth grade.
On the back wall of the music room, I have a sort of parade of the nine, large instrument cards we covered (woodwinds) with the name of each printed out and displayed with each instrument.
Before listening to the wolf and Peter, I show the children the instruments that will be key players in the story. At the far left end I've also added a card with strings to represent Peter and a card for timpani to show the rifles of the hunters.
OK. Everything's labeled and in a row. No numbers. Just names.
Yesterday, as an experiment generated by my curiosity here and also as a way to check whether my second graders (roughly seven years old) could respond quickly with the basic facts after hearing the work, I asked a series of questions by referring my children to the display of labeled instrument cards. I asked:
"The third from last instrument (i.e., card) was represented by which character?"
Kids piped out: "The grandfather!"
"The last instrument (i.e., card) was represented by which character?"
Kids piped out: "The duck!"
*Cross my heart, I never referred to the cards before by ordinal terms. I'd pointed to the pictures directly beforehand and said whatever points I'd wanted to make about the instrument.
What I'm getting at here is this group of young children had no problem whatsoever in translating what I meant by "third from last" "fifth from last" (clarinet) and similar terms. They responded very quickly since I was asking for group response (which we all know is a lemming response in children, but still the group responded correctly every time). And the rapidity of their answers is enlightening because they were having to (very quickly):
1. Find the correct picture I'd identified only by phrases such as "fourth from last instrument";
2. And make the connection between the picture and name they saw there and identify the correct character from the work.
I would suggest here that even if a child had never before heard "fourth from last," he would have been able to translate the meaning because of having possibly applied "fourth from the bottom" or "fourth from the end."
A tangent: What has been most surprising to me in this week of Peter's wolf is only a few children have ever heard it or even seen it in the numerous video/cartoon renditions of it. When I ask them, before plunging into the preparation, only two or three hands will go up in each class. The only exception this week was a fourth grade class in which seven out of about twenty-five hands went up.
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I seem to have misread your post on your parents' responses and apologize for my accusations of ambiguity. I also applaud the format of your test with the students; you got the information you were looking for in a context that completely disguised the question while at the same time getting the information that your lesson to the children was about. However, I stand by my contention that *logically, it's wrong to say that the antepenultimate is third from the last, but then who am I to condemn something linguistic for not being logical?
As a further test I would suggest asking people to identify the first from the last in a series.
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