I just received an email from Code Magazine containing an excerpt from a new book. The book is "Essential ASP.NET 2.0" by the improbably named Fritz Onion. This sentence grabbed my eye:

"ASP.NET 2.0 does not offer a penultimate solution for storing client state, but it does introduce three new features that should be considered any time you are looking for a place to store state on behalf of individual users."

Why is that word misused so often? It does NOT mean "more than ultimate." (Which would be what exactly? Isn't that like being "very unique"?). If you don't happen to know the definition and don't feel like looking it up, penultimate means "next to last." Granted, that may not be the most intuitive meaning in the world, but if someone is going to use a 50 cent word they should know what it means, don't you think? Particularly if they are a published author or a professional editor?

There. I feel better.