Re: Negative ordinality (was: Please welcome . . .)
| From: | Paul Bennett <paul-bennett@...> |
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| Date: | Monday, December 15, 2003, 2:12 |
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On Sun, 14 Dec 2003 19:38:23 -0500, Tristan McLeay <zsau@...>
wrote:
> What's wrong with last, second-last, third-last, fourth-last etc.? Neat
> and logical, and a lot easier to understand than antepenultimate and
> such.
> (What's fourth-last in that way? Is there some pattern?)
I have heard preantepenultimate, but I suspect that was somebody making a
similar point, rather than it being used seriously.
Actually, is that a weird memory phenomenon? Much like some people can see
a face, and recognise it but not know from where, I can encounter an
English word and know whether I've encountered it before, but can't always
cite when or where.
Also, it strikes me that preantepenultimate ought to mean |x < n - 2|
rather than |x = n - 3|, but maybe that's just me.
Paul
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