Book of Daze: Penultimate Day

Our culture is obsessed with going the extra mile, giving 110 percent, leaving it all on the field. Supermarkets are open 24/7/365 to satisfy our shopping needs from A-to-Z, while athletes routinely crow about taking their games “to a whole ‘nother level.” In the midst of this maelstrom, like the voice of one hand clapping in the wilderness, stands Postcards from the Pug Bus, founder of National Penultimate Dayâ„ .

“There’s much to be said for a 23/6 approach to living,” laughs The Bus, “allowing for some breathing room in our lives. Leonard Cohen wrote that we have to learn to stop bravely at the surface, I say we have to learn to stop bravely before the final chapter.”

According to The Bus, history is full of penultimate days that have gotten short shrift in our chronicles. September 10, 2001; December 6, 1942; October 11, 1492.

Furthermore, we talk about the nth degree representing the utmost as though there’s something inherently wrong with the mth degree representing the almost. And what’s the problem with living each day as if it’s the next-to-last day of your life? Or with Making America OK Again?

The Bus blames “our national obsession with superlatives” for also giving rise to the “hideous” misuse of penultimate to mean “the greatest thing ever, the GOAT among GOATS.” In response to “those twin monstrosities,” The Bus launched the National Penultimate Dayâ„  campaign this year.

Penultimate, as civilized people learn in school, means “last but one in a series of things; the next to last.” Penultimate does not mean nor should it be allowed to mean “the most ultimate” or “the most awesomest” ever.

The misuse of penultimate leads to atrocities like the following headline from Science Direct, “Female genital mutilation: the penultimate gender abuse.” Or this cheese ball from the Parksville-Qualicum News in British Columbia: “The penultimate insult to my dad’s world view was the portrayal of fathers on television.” Or this pitch from a public relations professional: “The NRA provides the penultimate value-added services for discerning gun owners.”

The incorrect use of penultimate to mean “the absolute, balls-to-the-wall greatest of all times, ever” is a malapropism, a slip of the tongue wherein speakers puff out their chests and substitute a grand-sounding word for a plainer-sounding one because of a similarity in pronunciation (or because the grand word sounds cool and rolls off the tongue organically like water off a duck’s feathers).

Instead, here’s how penultimate was meant to be used: “During the training, they dived on the wreck five times, successfully identifying the truck on the penultimate dive.” So what was the dive on which they identified the truck? Yep, the fourth one, the one before the last.

Here’s one more: “The Giants didn’t clinch a wild card berth until the penultimate day of the season.”

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