I would like to see the original source from which this precept was lifted. I suspect the author thought "penultimate" was either an educated or an emphatic form of "ultimate."

Agree with R.W. My beloved Mrs. Schroeder (H.S. Composition 1979) beat into me with a verbal whip that the last sentence is the most important in a thesis.

She also handed out pamphlets of Politics and the English Language by George Orwell. Today she'd most likely get administratively lynched by any modern public high school.

At what point did laziness and political correctness replace scholarship in modern education?

Arguably 1996, when they renormed the SATs.

Of course, that reflects decades of declining ability...

So, maybe the mid-80s.

The use of computers is a bad joke, of course, but surely the reason we would even consider testing this way is that few of us have any notion of what learning English is about beyond functional literacy that will secure a job. Writing to inspire, to alarm, to persuade, to delight, etc. is now seen as as akin to painting or studying Latin--a harmless pastime of absolutely no use outside of very restricted circles.

Peter,

Interestingly enough, the local Catholic High School, who has had Latin offered as a class for years with not enough takers to justify paying a teacher to teach the course, has 3 full classes this Fall! Administration has had to call in local priests to teach!

Bartman:

That is encouraging and rather astounding. But we must not rest until ancient Greek, rhetoric and theology are back in the compulsory core. Think T-shirts could help us? ;-)

I never had the opportunity to study Latin or Greek in elementary or high school (although I had two years of French and one of German; a rather amazing accomplishment for a very small rural North Dakota school). What did I miss?

Roy:

Rich and enlightening hell.

Roy,

Knowledge of Latin (and Greek) make entering the medical field so much easier. The immense amount of vocabulary is usually Latin or Greek based, making understanding a word's meaning all that much quicker to grasp. Also learning Latin makes it easier to understand any of the Romance languages...French, Italian, Romanian, Portuguese, and Spanish (ex. Bianco, Blanc, and Blanco all mean "white")

Bartman:

"Also learning Latin makes it easier to understand any of the Romance languages...French..."

Congratulations. You have just driven Orrin into the anti-Latin camp.

Ooops! Sorry oj, please let me continue to post.

Roy, not much.

Very, very few of those of us who had a little Latin in Catholic school ever got to the point where we could appreciate the reputed glories of Latin rhetoric.

A friend who is a classicist assures me that Greek has even greater glories, but so what?

Any English speaker ought to be mesmerized by the sonorities of Amos Tutuola's "Witch-Herbalist of the Remote Town," but the story is just silly.

Most of what you could read in Latin if you could read Latin is nonsense.

Why "Lobotomized Weasel"?

That's an insult to mustelids everywhere...

Harry:

Utinam logica falsa tuam philosophiam totam suffodiant!

Harry are you going to let Peter get away with that comment? ; )

Penultimate is not the last sentance it's more of the sentance before last.

Tara:

That's the point.