Pluralizing regular nouns is easy enough. You have one dog, but many dogs. You have one house, but many houses. Things get more complicated when you have words that fall under different conventions, like having one goose and many geese, one mouse and many mice, one die and many dice, or one cactus and many cacti. It gets even more confusing when you get words that borrowed from other languages.
A prime example of this is when you refer to someone who has graduated with a college degree. It may be perfectly appropriate to refer to this person simply as a graduate, but you’ve likely also come across “alumni” when referring to former students from a certain school. Because it is only really used under this context, though, I find that many people can use the wrong word.
This is because there are not only singular and plural versions of the word, but there are also masculine and feminine forms, like how you many find for other words in languages like French.
A Single Male = Alumnus
“I’m an alumni from UCLA.”
That would be the incorrect usage, because the singular male form of the word is alumnus. If you are referring to just one male who is the past pupil of a college or university, you would say that he is an alumnus.
Multiple Males = Alumni
Since I graduated from the University of British Columbia, I would call myself a UBC alumnus. If I were referring to a group of people who graduated from UBC, then I would refer to them as alumni. That’s why I even have an Alumni Card from UBC to show for it.
This is likely the reason why the word “alumni” is more a part of the common vernacular than the other forms, but it is usually the word used by different alumni associations and alumni groups.
A Single Female = Alumna
While we only have very minimal use of gender forms in English, it is very common in many other languages. A house (la maison) is feminine in French, but the world (le monde) is masculine. The same thing happens with other Latin-based words like alumna, which would refer to a single female student. It would then be incorrect to refer to her as an alumnus.
Multiple Females = Alumnae
Just as there are masculine and feminine forms for the singular versions of the word, there are also masculine and feminine forms of the plural. When you have multiple females who had previously studied at a school, you would refer to the group as alumnae.
Mixed Male and Female Group = Alumni
Another reason why “alumni” is better known by more people is that it is also the “gender-neutral” term for a group of graduates. If you have a mixed group, they are alumni. If you have 99 women and just one man, they are still alumni. If you’re unsure of the mixture, then you’d still use alumni unless you found out for certain that the group was entirely female.
In a more casual context, if you want to avoid genders altogether, is to refer to a single person as an alum and a group as alums. This would likely not be acceptable in a more formal context, though, so if you are an alumnus (or alumna) of a prestigious school, it is in your best interest to use the correct word at the correct time.
Hat tip to Sophia Cheng for pointing out the difference between the masculine and feminine forms of these words to me.
Before this post, I didn’t know there are masculine and feminine forms of the word ‘Alumni’
Thanks!
That is way too many different words and grammar rules to remember for one word so that one can use it properly in a sentence. If I had to grammar check myself for this I would go crazy.
I believe that I will stick with calling someone or multiple as a graduate or graduates.
This sort of differentiation between masculine and feminine, singular and plural is the norm for many languages. It’s the same fundamental idea as actor vs. actress vs. actors vs. actresses.
Very good content. Can you mention more words of this(alumni) type.