Given the Question and Answer pair, detect whether the answer is acceptable or not. Denote acceptable answer as "yes", otherwise denote as "no". An acceptable answer is consistent with the context in question, detailed, long, and uses general knowledge of English. Answers that are not definite and suggest a variety of options are not acceptable answers.
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Question: Question: Is penultimate commonly used in English, or are its variations (such as second to last) more common? I need to use it in conjunction with the expressions First Payment Date and Last Payment Date to name variables while programming. In my mother language (Portuguese) Penultimate Payment Date would be fine, but it feels strange in English. (I know feels strange is not very helpful, but I'd like to know how to convey the meaning in the most natural way.) 
Answer: Someone I know who is a native speaker of Spanish and a professor at a university in the United States has complained that when he used the word "penultimate" in class, the students don't know what he's talking about. The word is perfectly, unimpeachably, 100% correct. It is a bit of an upscale, literary word though. It certainly is a "term of art" in fields like linguistics, where it is used commonly to refer to syllables. I searched for the word in the Corpus of Contemporary American English, and divided the results by section: spoken, fiction, magazine, newspaper, and academic, and got these results: spoken: 10 fiction: 53 magazine: 55 newspaper: 36 academic: 93 total: 247 So, it is certainly used in all areas of English, with a moderate skew towards higher registers like academic writing. Depending on the intended audience, a writer contemplating using the word "penultimate" should consider that there is a relatively high likelihood that word will not be understood. Instead of "penultimate", the phrasing in common usage is either "next to last" or "second to last". Both of those should be universally understood. Interestingly, Google Ngrams shows that the word "penultimate" rose in usage (in published books) steadily from 1800 to about 1990, and since 1990 it has shown a steep dropoff, taking us back to usage levels from the late 1960s. The better-understood terms "second to last" and "next to last" are less common (again, though, in published booksGoogle Ngrams tells us nothing about spoken usage), with "next to last" having more historical usage but a slow tapering off of usage since 1960 and "second to last" increasing in usage from 1970 on, with both enjoying approximately the same usage today.

Answer: yes


Question: Question: In technical literature as well as aircraft user interfaces where there is not enough space to write the whole word, the prefix "trans" is shortened to "x". Transmit -> Xmit Transfer -> Xfer I am interested to know what is the origin of this. I am curious because "Ex" and "Trans" do not have a similar sound. 
Answer: In addition to the other edifying answers and comments: from an information-theory viewpoint, given the rarity of initial "x" in English words, the presence of it (especially if unpronounceable) is a clear signal that there is something at play slightly out of the ordinary, and it will not be easily mistaken for anything else. That is, information-theory-wise, the chance of misunderstanding is low (more technically/precisely, the error-correction properties of this usage are excellent).

Answer: no


Question: Question: Somehow I am compelled to use the word "metal" to describe strong "intestinal fortitude", and perseverance however I can't find the spelling or any synonym like this. Does a word that sounds like "metal" exist when describing an individual's character? I'm looking for modern or historic usage of the word. 
Answer: Mettle Defined by Oxford Dictionaries as: a person's ability to cope well with difficulties; spirit and resilience. It is commonly seen in the phrase: (put someone) on their mettle meaning, (of a demanding situation) test someone's ability to face difficulties. 'there were regular public meetings where local MPs were put on their mettle and remorselessly pilloried' Source: ODO Other constructions are possible too, for example: test their mettle, apparently an American version (thanks, @PeterCordes) show your mettle, etc. Origins According to Merriam-Webster, mettle was, as @Sparhawk points out in the comments, originally simply a variant spelling of the word metal (which dates to at least the 13th century), and it was used in all of the same senses as its metallic relative. Over time, however, mettle came to be used mainly in figurative senses referring to the quality of someone's character, with a first known usage in 1581. Today, both words can mean "vigor and strength of spirit or temperament," but only metal is used of metallic substances.

Answer:
yes