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
