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As a further test I would suggest asking people to identify the first from the last in a series. Ugh! At last you have hit upon the root of this eternal confusion (I remember e.g. the discussion about "quinzaine" meaning two weeks). Nobody ever uses "first from the last"! In spite of the logical hole, the penultimate is generally considered the second from the last (german "zweitletzter", symmetrical to the second, i.e. the "second from the first" which should be the second from the beginning, but this beginning is thin air). (reductio ad absurdum) 
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identify the first from the last in a series.This, I think, is the root of the argument. I haven't posted anything here yet because it's been fun to watch you guys argue.  Anyway, I think the whole problem stems from there being no first from the last, i.e., the first from the last is the same as the last. (Why is this starting to sound vaguely Biblical? "And the last shall be first and the first shall be last..." Obviously they have struggled with this question for something like 2000 years!  ) Anyway, we only really talk about the second-last, third-last, fourth-last and so on. And why hasn't anyone noted the above forms (that is, with hyphens) in this discussion? Those would be the ones I most commonly hear and read.
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>And why hasn't anyone noted the above forms
actually®, I did (just without the hyphens).
-joe pate (just without the markings)
<just forget I started this thread>
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Sorry, tsuwm, I guess I missed them, maybe by reading too quickly or maybe because if you read this thread for too long it all begins to sound a bit Dr. Seuss-y.
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If you insist on making a distinction, the ambiguity can be removed by referring to the "third from the last" for the standard/intuitive meaning and the "third away from the last" for the hair-splitting one.
I prefer Tsuwm's Law: if it's awkward, don't use it. (or was that Safire's Law?)
(And now, sports fans, can you think of a word with the letters "-wkw-" in it somewhere, in exactly that order?)
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I can't wait for someone to make the antepenultimate post in this thread.
formerly known as etaoin...
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I can't wait for someone to make the antepenultimate post in this thread.Goodness, no! This is too much fun to read! Wofa makes a point, let's see what the major contestants, tsuwm, Wordwind and Faldage have to say.... my own se'f, I'm penultimately broque. x-thread
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Well, I have a comment to make. [Deep-breath-e]
"First from last" is a valid way of thinking, speaking and writing to indicate "penultimate." I now can at least see that "first from last" has validity, even though "next to last" is the more common term. I won't use "first from last," but will stick with "next to last" because it's easily understandable. I will also use "penultimate" when I want to sound like a smart aleck.
However, even though I understand "first from last," I see that "second from last" is the same thing as "first from last." This is perhaps a linguistic paradox. Ain't English fun?
I'm convinced that, in my little neck of the woods, the children have no problem with shouting out in unison the correct positions (the way I reckon 'em) when asked for "third from last" (i.e., antepenultimate), "second from last" (i.e., penultimate), and even "seventh from last" positions. I know this because I tried it again today. The only problem I encountered today was with one class in which a rebellious student decided to identify "first" (true first: to the far left) as "last." So beats on the independent spirit in the human race. [Essentially, the student in question identified the kettle drums as the duck in "Peter and the Wolf," but I do believe that student has a cognitive processing problem that goes a bit beyond first and last.]
Although I haven't asked my kids about "first from last," I have a sneaking suspicion that they would also identify that position as "second from last" if I hadn't used "second from last" first. I could try it out next week just to see.
But what I suggest here is that because "first from last" is such a rare expression, that "next to last" is the best bet to use if you want to be understood. If you use "penultimate," you're going to lose part of your audience who will, as birdseed has observed, will think you mean the ultimate or last position.
The whole point here is to be understood. "Know your audience." And, if the world at large is your audience, I don't expect many of them to be lost by "next to last," "third from last," "fourth from last," and so on. I think they will naturally count, using ordinal numbers, just as my aged parents and young children did.
Tonight I will ask my dad to identify the first from last number on the notecard just to see what his reaction is.
I will tell you my dad is a kidder. I would tell you the coyote tale he told me tonight, but I'll save that for Animal Safari if someone starts a coyote thread. You know, like: "What is the adjective form of coyote?"
Whether first from last, second away from last, third from the end, or fourth away from the last, it's debatable whether we should, in every instance, save the best for last.
Best regards,
WW
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Tonight at supper, I pulled out the card from last night's dinner--the one with:
1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8
...on it without ellipses.
I asked my dad, "What is first from last?"
He answered, "One and eight."
Chew on that for a while.
And:
Back to the kid who said the 'last' card (i.e., really the first card, the kettle drums) was the "Duck!"
Explanation: He pointed in full view to the first card. The other kids were saying, "Duck!" (i.e., last card, oboe). I think an logical explanation for his behavior was that "lemming behavior" I wrote about somewhere way above all this nonsense.
Back to my dad. I burst out laughing and said, "Can't wait to tell Faldage what you said!"
He said, "Y'all are way above my head."
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Can I play? We don't say that we are the beginning person in a line we say that we are the first person in line. Why? Because being a first person is easy to number and it doesn't cost us any wasted energy to be exact. We usually don't say that we are the end person in a line because it can be heard as in person, so we just say last, or last person. And if we are last in a long line it is sometimes very hard to count just how last we are, so we just say last and leave the numbering out. But if we want to be picky and fix our position more precisely in a line we can count forward from the beginning or backwards from the end, whichever way in easiest to count. This is done 1, 2, 3, etc., always starting the count relative to the first or last person at either terminal end. That way we can then convey our position to anyone who'll listen to our happy gloats or our sour complaints. Big deal, no problem, until some high mucketymucks decided that we needed to name the three positions relative to the last position of the line with some polysyllablic clumsy names that mostly catered to showing-off. I diagram below... Beginning of line, numbered..... [Box Office] [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [etc.] then... Middle of line unnumbered and unnamed... [x] [x] [x] [x] [x] [x] [x] [x] [x] [x] [x] [x] End of line, four named... [x] [x] [x] [x] [?] [?] [?] [?] <--< (last person or unit) ______________________^ultimate (last) position ___________________^penultimate position ________________^antepenulitumate position _____________^preantepenulitumate position No matter that these cumbersome words would never be used by decent God fearing men, they soon found extensive use among hoodwinkers, lawyers, and polititians, whose jobs depend on words of obfuscation. Then one day along came tswum, a man who never left a tweak untwated, a crafty man who quickly found a soul cell mate in the man Faldage, who, when not on line, argues with stumps. No, no, no, I don't mean to imply that they argued with the meanings of the three awkward constructions, they didn't, they argued with the way the definition was given. And so as not to mislead, tswum and faldage preferred fourth from the end as opposed to fourth from the last.And grit my teeth, they are right. 
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