RE: Latin

I don't consider my-self a Latin scholar, nor a great lover of the language, but one of my pet peeves in people who use Latin words but don't inflect them correctly. Granted this is often a small point, like people using stadiums and not stadia. But what never ceases to annoy me is how people abuse the word alumnus. They say alumni for a one person, alumnus for a female graduate, alum for one graduate, and (I consider this the worst of the bunch) alums for many graduates. (As you might guess this time of year (mid May) always upsets me.)

I understand, though do not excuse, people making these mistakes; either in conversation or in print by newspaper writers, who have never been nor ever will be good writers. But today I say a bumper sticker that said "CU Alumni". Now this is too much! The University of Colorado is one of the best state colleges in the country, and it has a wonderful Classics Department. Surley at least our universities could be counted on to defend language from the Philistines. But that would be too much to ask from the "Home of the Buffs".