I'm sick and tired of the announcers constantly saying penultimate

I guess STEM degrees don't include stats courses because your 99% of ignorant people is just plain ignorant.

It takes a special type of person (country-wise and political affiliation wise) to be proud of their ignorance and be obnoxiously aggressive that if they're ignorant that the entire world is as ignorant as they are.

I'll TLDR for you: complain less and read more.

Unless you work in energy futures and risk management, you will not be exposed to it.

Unless you read which is a stretch for 99% of LRC. Great education system. USA! USA! USA!

Yea context cues kinda make the definition obvious. So your point is a bit moot.

I agree amigo. I had to ask someone with a Ph.D if there's a word for third-to-last, fourth-to-last, so on, and I crap you not this is what he told me:

ultimate

penultimate

antepenultimate

preantepenultimate

propreantepenultimate (5th to last)

Normal ppl do not talk this way.

When I took the usatf coaching clinic, they used the word constantly for all the jumping events. Always talking about the penultimate step! I had never heard the word before or since….. except for track commentary! So yea that’s where they learned it from!

"next to last" is ambiguous. Does it mean the thing right next to last before it? Or does it mean the next thing after last? Next usually means later.

And "last" can mean the the most recent lap, as opposed to the lap at the very end. If a 5000 runner does lap 5 in 58 seconds, the commentator goes "wow that last lap was in 58 seconds."

What they should really say to not confuse people is "the lap immediately prior to the final lap." That takes a long time to say though, which is why the Roman probably shortened it to "penultimate."

Announcers will talk that way once too many people catch on to what penultimate means

It's a common word in track and field and isn't just popping up this year.

Good memories hearing it during every race on the Athens 2004 game on PS2.

The one I keep hearing the last couple of years that I hadn't heard before is peloton.

Or sprinters saying “ execute “

I'm sick and tired of people on these boardsthinking penultimate is a fancy word.

It's used in common parlance here in Australia.

Perhaps you live a very sheltered existence.

As a Brit, I concur. I'm not entirely sure if this thread is some kind of weird joke that I don't get.

The average 8 year old over here would know what it meant if you asked them. Very commonly used word.

"Penultimate" is track announcer Paul Swangard's favorite word -- he says it over and over and over again. It is a legitimate word, however. That doesn't mean I like Swangard's frequent use of the word, because it seems showoffish. I like Swangard's work, overall, it's just that one word rankles me. Big deal, though.

Sanya Richards-Ross just LOVES to use the word "phenomenal" -- again it's an over and over and over again usage. The word often hypes an athlete wrongly, and I sure wish she'd jump off the hype train. Was the Baltimore Orioles 101-win season last year phenomenal? It was fanastic, but it was not phenomenal. (And then they lost in the first round of the payoffs, I mean the playoffs.) Had Richards-Ross been the Orioles announcer, every strikeout of an opponent would have been "phenomenal" and every Orioles win "phenomenal". It's a bit much! Otherwise, I really like her announcing, her friendliness, her enthusiasm, and her knowledge of the sport.

(Since I'm mentioning NBC announcers, I'll just add that I think Oto Bolden is phenomenal. No, that's S R-R's opinion of his skills. Really, though, I think he is excellent. And unlike a few who post here, I enjoy the NBC announcers, all of them, by and large. No anti-Lewis chatter from me regarding Johnson or Trey Hardee or Kara Goucher or Leigh Diffey...except once from Johnson, when he sucked up to Sha'Carri Richardson after she bombed in a race a year or two ago. Once, for Johnson. He's a talented interviewer, normally, but coming the heels of this posting will likely be various "Goucher sucks" and "Johnson sucks" posts...and that will give someone the opportunity to write, "Dwight Stone sucks." "Hate is a beautiful thing" seems to come to mind here...)

Slight edit...Change one sentence to: "No negative chatter from me...", not "no anti-Lewis chatter from me..."

This sounds like a "you" problem, trying to blame others for making you feel bad, and obliging others to change to make you feel comfortable.

Penultimate has existed since the 17th century, and is commonly used around the world.

It is a very strange boast by the OP to proudly proclaim his ignorance especially over such a commonplace word.

Just in case:

Commonplace

adjective

not unusual; ordinary.

"unemployment was commonplace in his trade"

Can confirm, when I was 8 I read the "A Series of Unfortunate Events" book series and the second-to-last book is called "The Penultimate Peril".

Get your kids to read.