tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10930028.post116060433288816166..comments2009-08-11T19:11:14.681+01:00brandarlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16628970196187335479noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10930028.post-118319719660510172009-08-11T19:11:14.681+01:002009-08-11T19:11:14.681+01:00Penultimate doesn&#39;t mean second to last; this is one of the many dangers of learning one&#39;s words from dictionaries. It&#39;s explicitly the sound preceding phrase closure in rhetoric, when and only when one is using crescendo ultimatum.<br /><br />It&#39;s our way of referring to what other languages call a penultimum (or penultima).<br /><br />People using penultimate to refer to the next to final element in a list are just showing their poor education. It&#39;s a character affectation of someone on a television show Fawlty Towers who&#39;s meant to appear of low education but who puts on affectations to appear otherwise, inevitably getting them wrong. Many people who watched the show and don&#39;t have an appreciation for the character&#39;s poor quality of language picked up the bad habit.<br /><br />Please don&#39;t instruct others to follow suit.StoneCypherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07701245705928548668noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10930028.post-75637399157201278922007-09-10T17:13:00.000+01:002007-09-10T17:13:00.000+01:00Thanks to author for this article. Very interesting. Write more!<a href="http://erniz.com">Hilbert</a>noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10930028.post-60576655991988698662007-05-14T05:54:00.000+01:002007-05-14T05:54:00.000+01:00maybe not ta ratedsfileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02250179882833847310noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10930028.post-66528190167100970112007-05-14T05:53:00.000+01:002007-05-14T05:53:00.000+01:00It's funny to call these words Britishisms. Didn't they invent the language? Come to Australia (or NZ), and you'll hear lots of these same words.tedsfileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02250179882833847310noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10930028.post-1161205717759229522006-10-18T22:08:00.000+01:002006-10-18T22:08:00.000+01:00"queue", "top of the range", "take away", "vouchers"Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10930028.post-1160680488721919562006-10-12T20:14:00.000+01:002006-10-12T20:14:00.000+01:00It was only a couple of years ago that I understood the difference between holiday and vacation. For years, I have wished travelling friends a "happy holiday" not realising that it was meant to be used in a different context!acechickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11255689038097146768noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10930028.post-1160618703598386812006-10-12T03:05:00.000+01:002006-10-12T03:05:00.000+01:00The Britishisms made me remember a character from Atwood's "Cat's Eye"<BR/> "Are you sufficiently saphonsified?"<BR/>(the same as "did you get enough to eat")<BR/><BR/> "I feel like Haggis McBaggis" means what it sounds like!<BR/> Her family had a number of these sayings and when she started going on dates and asking the guy this stuff, he was confused to say the least.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com