Please help me figure this out.
I'm reading an election-related story (" 'Humbled' DeWeese hangs on ," Nov. 5 and PghTrib.com).
In the penultimate sentence, Jerry Shuster, a professor of communication and political rhetoric at the University of Pittsburgh, is quoted as saying that Bill DeWeese is "the penultimate politician."
Did he really say that, or was it a typographical error⢠If he was quoted correctly, I have to admit, I don't understand what a professor of communications is trying to communicate. Every dictionary I have referenced defines the word "penultimate" as meaning "the next-to-the-last thing in a series."
The penultimate thing is preceded by the antepenultimate and it comes before the ultimate, or last, thing in a series. What did professor Shuster mean?
That Bill DeWeese is the second-to-the-last politician?
Was the Trib in on some kind of joke⢠Was that why the quote was placed in the next-to-the-last sentence⢠Please clarify this for me.
Andrew N. Mewbourn
Hempfield
The writer is currently living and working in Ulan Baatar, Mongolia.
