4 ms·

> a wealthy Stanford alumni Grammar tip: In English, the word "alumnus" is typically declined as it would be in Latin. Especially amongst academics, I'd say.

> a wealthy Stanford alumni Grammar tip: In English, the word "alumnus" is typically declined as it would be in Latin. Especially amongst academics, I'd say. So if you're writing for that audience, the appropriate forms of "alumnus" are, I think, as follows [0]: "alumnus" - One male, or one person of unspecified sex. "alumna" - One female. "alumnae" - Multiple females. "alumni" - Multiple persons whose sex is all male, mixed male/female, or unspecified. [0] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/alumnus#Latin https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/alumnus#Latin

jordigh 8y ago
I rarely hear that anymore. I almost always hear "alumni" in all cases. I've tried saying to the librarians of my alma mater that I'm an alumnus and they repeat back to me, "oh, you're an alumni, sure, let me get you alumni access to our system." Maybe it's common somewhere else to make those distinctions, but they're not common at McGill.
- xcbxx 8y ago
  It sounds immensely uneducated though. But the distinction between plural and singular seems to be abolished in other useless taxpayer-funded fields, too...
- wenc 8y ago
  Unfortunately, common or not, the usage of "alumni" in that context is incorrect. It may be a bit pedantic to insist on correctness in Latin, but all other schools use the term correctly and it doesn't reflect well on a well-regarded school to use the term incorrectly.
  - SahAssar 8y ago
    Isn't language defined by common use over time?
    - wenc 8y ago
      Yes it is by processes of consensus arising from appeals to stylistic license, shared community language, memes, etc. But not every grammatical error falls into these categories. Think of it this way - let's say you make a grammatical mistake that most people consider a mistake. You shouldn't hide behind the "language evolves" catch-all card... you should to recognize it as a mistake and try to use the correct form. "Alumni" is plural.
      - psychometry 8y ago
        Your first sentence almost led you to a realization that you're wrong, but you just barely missed the boat judging from your last sentence.
        wenc 8y ago
        Not at all. You have misread me. That language evolves is a common used argument (and there is a place for it) but often used as a catch-all argument to justify errors.
        SahAssar 8y ago
        But in this case alumni is in common use in that way and has been for some time. You yourself acknowledged that by starting your comment with "Unfortunately, common or not".
        wenc 8y ago
        > But in this case alumni is in common use in that way and has been for some time. I dispute that. Googling doesn't turn up many examples of official usage of alumni in the singular. I also disagree with your second claim, which is a projection. When I said "common or not", I meant that frequency in itself does not automatically make something correct, and I gave reasons why in a follow-up comment. I didn't claim that usage was common. I'm not trying to be difficult, but alumni really is plural. Using alumni as singular is not correct.
txru 8y ago
It's also important that it's alumnīs in ablative when you're going away from multiple alumnīs. My friends don't seem to like when I tell them about proper declension when we're in the stadiō.
- DoofusOfDeath 8y ago
  You could be right, I don't know. Of all the Latin lessons I had in high school, I probably zoned out the most during those that covered the ablative case. :)
  - leetcrew 8y ago
    txru is trolling you. when we inflect Latin words in English, we always treat them as if they have nominative case.
Rebelgecko 8y ago
My Latin is a little rusty and mixing Latin grammar with English is doomed to be an exercise in futility, but IIRC that declension is only correct if you're using alumn- as an adjective for another noun which is masculine or feminine (which doesn't necessarily match the gender of the person, e.g. agricola is a masculine noun but can refer to a female farmer) If you're using it by itself as a noun, it's 2nd declension and the ending changes only based on plurality or case, not the gender of the actual graduate(s)
- DoofusOfDeath 8y ago
  > mixing Latin grammar with English is doomed to be an exercise in futility I agree. When thinking about the use of "proper" English, I find myself conflicted. One the one hand, I truly believe that languages evolve, and it's silly to put any one particular version of English on a pedestal. That includes the version(s) one might associated with English speakers who are well-educated and/or wealthy. On the other hand, I was raised to speak "proper" English, because my father believed that it strongly affects others' first impressions of the speaker's intelligence. I think my father was right about that, although I'm still undecided about how much it matters, and whether or not it's a concern worth catering to.
- thaumasiotes 8y ago
  No, if you're using it by itself as a noun, it's 2nd declension when masculine and 1st declension when feminine, just like most nouns coming from adjectives and exhibiting obvious gender. Agricola and its cousins are exceptions, not the general case. Compare amicus / amica. Alternatively, if you're using it by itself as an adjective, obviously it will take the appropriate gender. You don't need an explicit noun if you're happy with an implicit "man", "woman", or "thing".
jmkb 8y ago
In my experience, most people simply use "alum" for the singular, "alums" for the plural. Dropping the n, even!
- _emacsomancer_ 8y ago
  Presumably a combination of reanalysing "alumn-us", "alumn-i", etc. as "alum-nus", "alum-ni", etc. and a phonological preference/constraint against word-final /mnz/. And against /mn/ too: even English column is /ˈkɒləm/ and not /ˈkɒləmn/.
hackandtrip 8y ago
I can say that in Latin countries, like Italy, where basic Latin knowledge is common, we use "Alumni" talking about one male/female anyway. Same grammar confusion happens with "curriculum" (single) or "curricula" (multiple).
_emacsomancer_ 8y ago
When I was at University, I worked for the Department of Annual Giving, at first on the phones. I still remember one of the other callers always starting her spiel with "We're calling all the alumnis." With an English plural on top of a Latin plural, for good measure, I suppose. I cringed every time. (Though, to be fair, the native English word children is in fact a double plural as well. [The -re is plural, thus early/dialectal forms childer "child [pl.]", and then later with a plural -n slapped on top of the already plural word, presumably because the -re plural ending had become somewhat obscure, just as Latin plural endings are for some modern English speakers.] Doesn't make me cringe any less at "alumnis", despite that.)
alasdair_ 8y ago
If you insist on being pedantic, at least be correct. "alumnum" is the correct Latin term for a singular person of undetermined sex.
- DoofusOfDeath 8y ago
  My understanding of the issue comes from long-ago high-school Latin classes, and a few websites ([0], [1]). If you have a more authoritative source of information I'd be grateful for a link. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alumnus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alumnus [1] https://www.grammarly.com/blog/alumna-alumnae-alumni-alumnus/ https://www.grammarly.com/blog/alumna-alumnae-alumni-alumnus...

jordigh 8y ago

I rarely hear that anymore. I almost always hear "alumni" in all cases. I've tried saying to the librarians of my alma mater that I'm an alumnus and they repeat back to me, "oh, you're an alumni, sure, let me get you alumni access to our system." Maybe it's common somewhere else to make those distinctions, but they're not common at McGill.

xcbxx 8y ago
It sounds immensely uneducated though. But the distinction between plural and singular seems to be abolished in other useless taxpayer-funded fields, too...
wenc 8y ago
Unfortunately, common or not, the usage of "alumni" in that context is incorrect. It may be a bit pedantic to insist on correctness in Latin, but all other schools use the term correctly and it doesn't reflect well on a well-regarded school to use the term incorrectly.
- SahAssar 8y ago
  Isn't language defined by common use over time?
  - wenc 8y ago
    Yes it is by processes of consensus arising from appeals to stylistic license, shared community language, memes, etc. But not every grammatical error falls into these categories. Think of it this way - let's say you make a grammatical mistake that most people consider a mistake. You shouldn't hide behind the "language evolves" catch-all card... you should to recognize it as a mistake and try to use the correct form. "Alumni" is plural.
    - psychometry 8y ago
      Your first sentence almost led you to a realization that you're wrong, but you just barely missed the boat judging from your last sentence.
      - wenc 8y ago
        Not at all. You have misread me. That language evolves is a common used argument (and there is a place for it) but often used as a catch-all argument to justify errors.
        SahAssar 8y ago
        But in this case alumni is in common use in that way and has been for some time. You yourself acknowledged that by starting your comment with "Unfortunately, common or not".
        wenc 8y ago
        > But in this case alumni is in common use in that way and has been for some time. I dispute that. Googling doesn't turn up many examples of official usage of alumni in the singular. I also disagree with your second claim, which is a projection. When I said "common or not", I meant that frequency in itself does not automatically make something correct, and I gave reasons why in a follow-up comment. I didn't claim that usage was common. I'm not trying to be difficult, but alumni really is plural. Using alumni as singular is not correct.

txru 8y ago

It's also important that it's alumnīs in ablative when you're going away from multiple alumnīs. My friends don't seem to like when I tell them about proper declension when we're in the stadiō.

DoofusOfDeath 8y ago
You could be right, I don't know. Of all the Latin lessons I had in high school, I probably zoned out the most during those that covered the ablative case. :)
- leetcrew 8y ago
  txru is trolling you. when we inflect Latin words in English, we always treat them as if they have nominative case.

Rebelgecko 8y ago

My Latin is a little rusty and mixing Latin grammar with English is doomed to be an exercise in futility, but IIRC that declension is only correct if you're using alumn- as an adjective for another noun which is masculine or feminine (which doesn't necessarily match the gender of the person, e.g. agricola is a masculine noun but can refer to a female farmer) If you're using it by itself as a noun, it's 2nd declension and the ending changes only based on plurality or case, not the gender of the actual graduate(s)

DoofusOfDeath 8y ago
> mixing Latin grammar with English is doomed to be an exercise in futility I agree. When thinking about the use of "proper" English, I find myself conflicted. One the one hand, I truly believe that languages evolve, and it's silly to put any one particular version of English on a pedestal. That includes the version(s) one might associated with English speakers who are well-educated and/or wealthy. On the other hand, I was raised to speak "proper" English, because my father believed that it strongly affects others' first impressions of the speaker's intelligence. I think my father was right about that, although I'm still undecided about how much it matters, and whether or not it's a concern worth catering to.
thaumasiotes 8y ago
No, if you're using it by itself as a noun, it's 2nd declension when masculine and 1st declension when feminine, just like most nouns coming from adjectives and exhibiting obvious gender. Agricola and its cousins are exceptions, not the general case. Compare amicus / amica. Alternatively, if you're using it by itself as an adjective, obviously it will take the appropriate gender. You don't need an explicit noun if you're happy with an implicit "man", "woman", or "thing".

jmkb 8y ago

In my experience, most people simply use "alum" for the singular, "alums" for the plural. Dropping the n, even!

_emacsomancer_ 8y ago
Presumably a combination of reanalysing "alumn-us", "alumn-i", etc. as "alum-nus", "alum-ni", etc. and a phonological preference/constraint against word-final /mnz/. And against /mn/ too: even English column is /ˈkɒləm/ and not /ˈkɒləmn/.

hackandtrip 8y ago

I can say that in Latin countries, like Italy, where basic Latin knowledge is common, we use "Alumni" talking about one male/female anyway. Same grammar confusion happens with "curriculum" (single) or "curricula" (multiple).

_emacsomancer_ 8y ago

When I was at University, I worked for the Department of Annual Giving, at first on the phones. I still remember one of the other callers always starting her spiel with "We're calling all the alumnis." With an English plural on top of a Latin plural, for good measure, I suppose. I cringed every time. (Though, to be fair, the native English word children is in fact a double plural as well. [The -re is plural, thus early/dialectal forms childer "child [pl.]", and then later with a plural -n slapped on top of the already plural word, presumably because the -re plural ending had become somewhat obscure, just as Latin plural endings are for some modern English speakers.] Doesn't make me cringe any less at "alumnis", despite that.)

alasdair_ 8y ago

If you insist on being pedantic, at least be correct. "alumnum" is the correct Latin term for a singular person of undetermined sex.

DoofusOfDeath 8y ago
My understanding of the issue comes from long-ago high-school Latin classes, and a few websites ([0], [1]). If you have a more authoritative source of information I'd be grateful for a link. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alumnus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alumnus [1] https://www.grammarly.com/blog/alumna-alumnae-alumni-alumnus/ https://www.grammarly.com/blog/alumna-alumnae-alumni-alumnus...