WTF?

[threemonkeys]

OK, this just has me perplexed. See I have one of those desk calendars that gives you a trivia question per day. On Friday, it posed the question "Where might you hear people mention the terms penultimate and rover?" The answer given, from a multi-choice set is "On a cricket pitch".

They are valid English words, and I suppose you could fit them into the description of a game but I wouldn't think them distinctively cricket terms in any way. For example penultimate does occasionally get used by commentators in a restricted overs match, but it isn't common. Then perhaps "rover" is just somebody mishearing "over" but I haven't spotted anything else that badly researched. The other questions are very American and rather old which might be a factor (it also makes it a crap calendar generally).

Google does not group the words sensibly, so I'm turning to you. Any ideas?

Comments

[tillianion.livejournal.com]

I have the answer - croquet. Penultimate is the second last hoop you score, rover the last. In fact, the rover hoop is red, hence the saying (I think) "all over red rover" cause once you've got the second ball through rover, the game is pretty much over.

Who would have thought my husband's obsession would serve me here?

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

Thank you! Easy to imagine an American trivia compiler mistaking croquet with cricket. Nice to have the mystery solved.