distinguished alum
Arnold Zwicky
zwicky at STANFORD.EDU
Wed May 6 16:03:00 UTC 2009
On May 6, 2009, at 8:45 AM, Barbara Need wrote:
> On 5 May 2009, at 7:46 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:
>
>> And I really doubt that the average non-classicist has any concept of
>> the the distinction in either meaning or pronunciation between -I and
>> -AE or the meaning of the nueuter plural, -A.
>
> Wilson,
>
> In my experience, non-classicists consistently use [aI] for alumni and
> [i] for alumnae.
and that's what AHD4 recommends, as i pointed out in the posting on my
blog (though not in the earlier draft here on ADS-L; my blog posting
is not just a re-publication of the ADS-L posting, but a revision and
expansion of it).
arnold
------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
More information about the Ads-l
mailing list