> But the second interpretation only makes sense if the last item somehow deserves special treatment (over, say, the second-to-last item).

There do exist reasons why this can make sense:

- In an Algebraic Data Type implementation of a non-empty list, the last symbol is a different type constructor than the one to append an item to the front of an existing non-empty list (similarly how for an Algebraic Data Type implementation of an arbitrary list, the type constructor for an initial empty list is "special").

- In a single-linked list implementation, sometimes (depending on the implementation) the terminal element of the list is handled differently.

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By the way: at work, because adding parameters at the beginning of a (parameter) list of a function is "special" (because in the code for many functions the first parameters serve a very special purpose), but adding some additional parameter at the end is not, we commonly use parameter lists formatted like

    'foo'
  , 'bar1'
  , 'bar2'
  , 'blub'