TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:

[roguefaeri]

if you have a license plate frame that says "alumni _______" you are perpetuating a moronic practice

Comments

[rage_unleashed]

*checks the "I learned something new today" checkbox*

Your cries go unheard, the vast majority of the people using the English language struggle to understand the difference between their, there and they're. Such corrections you talk of would cause anarchy and many noggins to explode.

[sokharr]

Not so much unheard, but more that no one pays much heed

[sokharr]

Uh oh, that new information shoved old information out of me head. Incidentally are the last few letters suppopsed to be capitalized?

It is mainly a personal quirk, one that can be put up with, assuming you can handle mine

[dope761]

"okay, okay, here's the answer to this once and for all:

the license plate thing IS correct! See. ALUMNI is plural in Latin so basically it's saying you belong to the alumni of ucla/usc/whereever i.e you belong to a group that includes ALL those who graduated from ucla/usc/whereever.

But in letters and things, I would have to say 'i am a ucla alumnA' or if i were a guy, 'ucla alumnUS' or if was confused 'ucla alum'"

so says an acquaintance of mine.

[roguefaeri]

ask anyone (except your acquaintance or me) who has that and i guarentee you that you'd be hard pressed to find ANYONE who realizes that he is an alumnus or she an alumna. and i dispute that theory on the basis that i have, actually, seen it singular. and it is still a commonly misused form of a word. it's like people who say "since" when they mean "because" (since is temporal), or who use "comprise" when they mean "compose" (because they are trying to sound intelligent, and subsequently fail), or who use the word "gender" instead of "sex" (as a biology type you should know that sex is the proper term for whether a living thing is male or female; as a word type, i can state that gender only applies to inanimate objects..like words).

ps.

[roguefaeri]

i like "if i [were] confused 'ucla alum'". =D

pps. good to hear from you!! *high five*

Re: ps.

[dope761]

*high five*

:D