 <p>This is just the way it is. <code>first</code> and <code>last</code> are not a complementary pair of operations. <code>last</code> is more closely related to <code>rest</code> and <code>nthcdr</code>. There is also <code>butlast</code> which constructs a new list that omits the last item from the given list.</p> <p><code>first</code> versus <code>last</code> is nothing compared to how <code>get</code> and <code>getf</code> have nothing to do with <code>set</code> and <code>setf</code>.</p>