distinguished alum

[Barbara Need]

I have used alum for both singular and plural for years. I attended
Swarthmore, a co-ed institution, and have found it much simpler than
arguing about the Latin vs. English pronunciations of alumni/alumnae.

Barbara

Barbara Need
Chicago

On 1 May 2009, at 11:07 AM, Arnold Zwicky wrote:

> "alumnus" and related forms have been troublesome for speakers and
> writers of english for some time, because they're unassimilated bits
> of latin.  "alumni" is very often used as a singular, as a way of
> avoiding the choice between the sex-marked "alumnus" and
> "alumna" ("alum" is another solution), although many have deprecated
> this as a vulgar error.  it is sometimes used with reference to a
> woman, as in "Are you an alumni of Green Mt. Camp for Girls?".
>
> so there are plenty of occurrences of "an alumni of".  but there are
> also some (though many fewer) occurrences of "an alumnae of".  you can
> see how this could come about: the pronunciation of -I and -AE in
> latin plurals is vexing, and though many people insist on /ai/ and /
> e/, respectively, an /ai/ pronunciation for both is not uncommon, and
> then the question is how to spell it.  the association of the -AE
> spelling with women remains strong, so almost all the 640 occurrences
> (dupes removed) of "an alumnae of" that i googled up refer to women.
> but there are a few referring to men:
>
>> I arrived to school late due to an art bid meeting this morning-but
> they had a celebration for Sue with a "Congratulations Mom" cake and
> punch. And one of our fabulous kitchen employees made up t-shirts with
> Harold's picture on it stating "We're proud of West Babylon's Top
> Chef", (He's an alumnae of our school district as well) that many
> staff members are wearing today.<
>   http://bloggingprojectrunway2.blogspot.com/2006_05_01_archive.html
>
>> My friend Andrew Kvammen (Andrew's Bad Stuff) is an alumnae of the
> Young Musicians' Orchestra and he was invited to perform at a show at
> Walt Disney Concert ...<
>   http://mickieszoo.blogspot.com/2007_06_01_archive.html
>
> i got into this topic because i came across the following on Paul
> Dickson's website:
>
>> Dickson, born in Yonkers, NY, graduated from Wesleyan University in
> 1961 and was honored as a Distinguished Alumnae of that institution in
> 2001.<
>   http://pauldicksonbooks.com/
>
> (the word is spelled ALUMNI on the Wesleyan (of Conn.) website, by the
> way.)
>
> this caught my eye because Dickson writes about language, among other
> things.  on his website, he says that he "now concentrates on writing
> about the American language, baseball, and 20th century history".
>
> arnold

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