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.

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