3 ms·
In my experience, most people simply use "alum" for the singular, "alums" for the plural. Dropping the n, even!
by jmkb 8y ago
In my experience, most people simply use "alum" for the singular, "alums" for the plural. Dropping the n, even!
- _emacsomancer_ 8y agoPresumably 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/.