The Trouble with Alumni

~ Julia

For Men:

  • singular: Alumnus
  • plural: Alumni

For Women:

  • singular: Alumna
  • plural: Alumnae

For Groups, involving men and women:

If you follow the Latin rules, you can have a crowd of 499 women and 1 man, and the correct word is alumni. At the time the language was structured, men took precedence over women because of the perceived strength of masculinity. Personally, I don’t take offense, after all, it is proper grammar.