Today The Oregonian’s headline announced sad news: “Teddy Kennedy, Senate lion, dies.”
Accidentally adding annoyance to injury, a photo accompanied the story, which had a lengthy caption in bold type attributed to Rep. Patrick Kennedy, the deceased senator’s son, who described his father as “the penultimate senator.”
And now you’ve caught the error that neither The Oregonian, The New York Times New Service that originated the story, nor the Associated Press that spread the article across the country managed to note in time. Penultimate, of course, means next to last. Not uber-ultimate or whatever the speaker was thinking. Next to last.
Actually, it also means “of or pertaining to a penult,” but try using that in a sentence.
Now you could say: but that is the actual quote, we can’t alter what a quoted individual says. And I would agree, but an editor can always choose not to run the part of the quote that makes its utterer look careless or ill-spoken or uneducated.
Well, no harm done, right? But again I disagree. Thanks to this widely disseminated news story, a common solecism will be further imbedded into everyday usage. This happens all the time, however, so perhaps I’m being a martinet to even object. “Terrific” once meant “terrible,” for instance; decades of mistaken assumptions that “aggravated” meant “irritated” have led to that being the word’s most frequent connotation.
And don’t get me started on words that are frequently misused to signify the reverse of what they actually mean: reactionary, hoi polloi, and disinterested, to name just a few. I could go on and on…..

Where will the writers come from to realize this project? You can ask Alison herself, who is so accessible as to leave her email address on the OSF site. Before you toss your hat in the ring, however, read
Where have I been for the past month, while The Editing Room has languished? Preparing for and then helping to produce the legendary
), where we’ll indulge in card-playing, overeating and gaping at pyrotechnics, we’re coasting today by simply referring you to one of our favorite literary blogs,
You know that handy old bromide: “a victim of one’s own success.” Yes, well. That’s my excuse for neglecting this blog. To my astonishment, I’ve been happily awash in editing assignments as of late (amazing for a young business, especially in this economic climate), and that’s left little time for musing and bemusings.
, as the Court helpfully 