tim's experiment

A nasty little accident occurred on the op-ed page of the Post on Thursday morning. The scene of the mishap was a rather long opinion piece called Smart Thinking. It was illustrated with a picture of a thoughtful looking young lady wearing an academic gown and holding out one of those flat hats that people wear at graduation ceremonies. I am not sure if she is supposed to be thinking or begging. If the latter this was an entertaining comment on the article.

The piece was written by one Paul Yip, who is a professor of Social Work and Social Administration (it is difficult to get academics to make choices) at the University of Hong Kong. The burden of the piece was rather unsurprising. Higher Education, like many other industries in Hong Kong, supposes it would be in the public interest if more public money was thrown at it. Since Mr Tsang had unaccountably failed to hose gold in the general direction of local universities when he had the opportunity to do so in the recent budget, he had missed an opportunity.

So here we have a professor at our premier university waving his credentials and starting the article like this: “As an alumni of the University of Melbourne…” As an alumni? Alumni is a Latin word. It is a plural. The singular is “alumnus”. The whole set is carefully documented on the parts of the internet where language pedants gather. Alumnus is the masculine singular, alumna the feminine singular, and alumnae the feminine plural. Whether the masculine plural, alumni, is acceptable for a group of graduates of both sexes is a matter of some squabbling in America.

It would I suppose be grossly unfair these days to berate a professor – especially a professor of social work – for not knowing his Latin. One can though, I think, complain that professors, like other writers, should not use a language if they do not understand it. “Alumni” is unnecessary. “Graduate” or “former student” will do just as well, and reduce the risk of looking pretentious.