{"id":347,"date":"2011-12-02T17:33:20","date_gmt":"2011-12-03T01:33:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/?p=347"},"modified":"2011-12-03T09:52:39","modified_gmt":"2011-12-03T17:52:39","slug":"attention-all-alumni","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/?p=347","title":{"rendered":"Attention all alumni"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

While chatting with a fellow last night, I learned that he was \u201can alumni<\/em> of Cal Poly.\u201d<\/p>\n

The problem is that he\u2019s not an alumni.<\/em> He\u2019s an alumnus.<\/em><\/p>\n

This is a problem word, one used almost universally incorrectly in our society. It\u2019s also an important word because it affects most of us. It\u2019s important that we not sound like we didn\u2019t learn about grammar<\/em> when we use the word for a person who attended a school, or participated in a training program, or did something with a group of people.<\/p>\n

In English we seldom conjugate nouns, or perhaps it\u2019s better to say that we don\u2019t have declensions for words in our language. There are some exceptions.<\/p>\n

Data<\/em> is almost always accepted as either singular or plural these days. The correct way to use it is singular: datum,<\/em> plural: data.<\/em> But, face it, this just sounds funny. So, we all cave and use data incorrectly… the word, not the actual numerical information.<\/p>\n

Forum<\/em> is another one. It\u2019s singular noun. Its plural form is fora,<\/em> which is so obscure that it is almost never heard, and when it is, you do a double-take to be sure you heard it right. I attended several fora this last week. Eek!<\/p>\n

But alumni\/us\/a\/ae<\/em> is a an important word, still, and we must all learn it correctly so that we don\u2019t sound undereducated.<\/p>\n

Here is the way to do it:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Men: singularly, you an alumnus;<\/em> plurally you and your colleagues are alumni.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nWomen: singularly, you an alumna;<\/em> plurally you are alumnae.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nMixed gender: plurally you are alumni.<\/em><\/p>\n

That\u2019s it.<\/em><\/p>\n

And, next time you are bragging about being an alumni<\/em> of the class of ought-six, you can get it right.<\/p>\n

Download a chart<\/a> of the alumni conjugations here.<\/p>\n

I will write about criteria<\/em> on another occasion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While chatting with a fellow last night, I learned that he was \u201can alumni of Cal Poly.\u201d The problem is that he\u2019s not an alumni. He\u2019s an alumnus. This is a problem word, one used almost universally incorrectly in our … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,16,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","category-language-and-grammar","category-people"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=347"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":352,"href":"https:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347\/revisions\/352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}