Author: Kirk

“Alumnus” vs. “Alumna” vs. “Alumni” vs. “Alumnae”

Common English Blunders, Foreign Languages, Nouns, Plurals, Versus

I thought about these nouns after seeing what I considered to be a misuse of one of them the other day.

Problem:
Many people are confused about which noun to use for which group of people.

Explanation:
My wife received in the mail two days ago a publication by her undergraduate and graduate-school alma mater.

The publication had a page devoted to one of its graduates.

The graduate was a woman, and the title on the page was “Alumni Profile” followed by her name.

I consider “Alumni” in the title to be inappropriate. I would have used “Alumna” instead. Here is the explanation.

The noun “alumnus” means a male graduate or former student of a particular university, college, or school.

The noun “alumna” means a female graduate or former student of a particular university, college, or school.

The noun “alumni” means male graduates or former students of a particular university, college, or school.

The noun “alumnae” means female graduates or former students of a particular university, college, or school.

Many colleges and universities use “alumni” to refer to males and females. This is analogous to the use of the masculine plural form in Spanish when referring to a group of only males or to a group of males and females.

Historically female colleges and universities that now accept males take a different tack: they use “alumnae and alumni” or “alumnae/i” to refer to their collective group of female and male graduates.

Solution:
Use “alumna” for a woman. Use “alumnae” for a group of women. Use “alumnus” for a man. Use “alumni” for a group of men or for a group of men and women. Never call an individual “an alumni” of a school, college, or university.

Names mean things: Madoff

General

“USA Today” reported yesterday that “The list of investors allegedly victimized by Wall Street money manager Bernard Madoff in what may be the world’s largest Ponzi scheme expanded rapidly Monday.”

Bernard L. Madoff, whose surname is pronounced as “made off”, apparently made off with an estimated fifty billion dollars from investors in Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC.

Talk about names meaning things!

I wonder whether any of the investors had a funny feeling when they first heard Mr. Madoff’s surname and how to pronounce it.

I am certain that more than a few of those investors see the connection now between his surname and what he did to their investments.

A dog with six-pack abs?

Commas, General

I swear that I am not making this up.

I saw an online advertisement yesterday for a physical-exercise program that is supposed to give the user six-pack abs (abdominal muscles).

Near the top of the ad is a photo of the author of the program.

The author’s dog appears in the photo, too.

Now, here is the funny part. The caption beneath the photo was “Craig Ballantyne, and his dog Bally, with 6-pack abs sculpted by Turbulence Training”.

If the advertising copywriter had left out the comma after the dog’s name, then the reader definitely could conclude that the pictured dog is the one whose name is Bally AND that has 6-pack abs — versus any other dog named “Bally” that Mr. Ballantyne might have.

A dog with six-pack abs?

The presence of the comma after the dog’s name in the photo caption essentially turns “with 6-pack abs …” into an aside.

What we cannot say for certain — at least not from the photo caption alone — is who has the six-pack abs.

In other words, we cannot say for certain whether the aside was intended for the man or for the dog.

Given the proximity of “with 6-pack abs …” to the dog’s name, it certainly seems that the advertising copywriter is claiming that the dog is the one with the six-pack abs.

To clearly indicate that Mr. Ballantyne has 6-pack abs, I would rewrite the caption as “Craig Ballantyne with 6-pack abs sculpted by Turbulence Training, accompanied by his dog Bally”.

Or I would leave any mention of the dog out of the caption.