(6 of 6)
JAMES NORMAN HALL Tahiti, French Oceania
>General Pierre-Jacques-Étienne Cambronne (1770-1842), when called upon to surrender by an English general in the Battle of Waterloo, is supposed to have used a five-letter word (four in English) euphemistically known as le mot de Cambronne.—ED.
Penultimate (cont'd)
Sirs:
It's high time that TIME and TIME-Reader Shishkin get time straight. Assuming that both refer to the Christian Era ("the penultimate year of the 20th Century's fourth decade," TIME, Jan. 1 and Jan. 15), I have spread my fingers and counted.
Beginning Jan. 1, 1 A.D. the 1st Century lasted through Dec. 31, 100 A.D. Analogically, the 20th Century began Jan. 1, 1901, its fourth decade Jan. 1, 1931.
As TIME first stated, 1939 was penultimate, 1940 ultimate.
JAMES W. PONTIUS Scotia, N. Y.
Sirs:
. . . The trouble is that using fingers and toes Reader Shishkin can't count far enough.
ELISABETH KLINGER
Washington, D. C.
Sirs:
. . . The editor to be "abashed" was the one who anti-penultimated.
JOHN B. NICHOLS Washinston, D. C.
Sirs:
". . .It was a historic midnight that marked the end, not of a year, but of a decade" (TIME, Jan. 8). What decade ended that night? Was not Dec. 31, 1939 the end of the ninth year of the 194th decade of the Christian Era? . . .
H. E. JAMISON Upper Darby, Pa.
> The Twentieth Century's fourth decade will end Dec. 31, 194O. The abashed editor is twice abashed. — ED.