People are pretty pleased with themselves for using alumnus, alumna, and alumni correctly, but you can still sometimes zing them with alumnae.
― the girl from spirea x (f. hazel), Tuesday, 11 February 2020 15:14 (four years ago) link
alumnopodes
― Alba, Tuesday, 11 February 2020 15:16 (four years ago) link
alumnopotamus
― High profile Tom D (Tom D.), Tuesday, 11 February 2020 15:37 (four years ago) link
alumninium
― beelzebubbly (Ye Mad Puffin), Tuesday, 11 February 2020 15:40 (four years ago) link
rock-ribbed
― Οὖτις, Tuesday, 11 February 2020 16:03 (four years ago) link
don't say "effort" when you mean LP or CD or release -- "bryan ferry's first solo effort" -- bcz it makes you sound like a condescending smug and bad teacher who shd immediately fuck off
― mark s, Tuesday, 11 February 2020 20:29 (four years ago) link
^ otm
― kinder, Tuesday, 11 February 2020 20:54 (four years ago) link
"fell pregnant"
― conrad, Sunday, 16 February 2020 10:41 (four years ago) link
Sounds like a calque from the French 'tomber enceinte'.
― romanesque architect (pomenitul), Sunday, 16 February 2020 10:44 (four years ago) link
that annoys the shit out of me too
― conrad, Sunday, 16 February 2020 11:14 (four years ago) link
You fall pregnant like you fall ill. One for the babby thread?
― romanesque architect (pomenitul), Sunday, 16 February 2020 11:19 (four years ago) link
pleasing echoes of plump, ripe babbies dropping to the floor like apples in autumn
― babby bitter (Noodle Vague), Sunday, 16 February 2020 11:25 (four years ago) link
LET THE BABBIES HIT THE FLOOR
― romanesque architect (pomenitul), Sunday, 16 February 2020 11:33 (four years ago) link
eStork battery drained too quickly
― an incoherent crustacean (MatthewK), Sunday, 16 February 2020 12:08 (four years ago) link
Time to bring back, "She's got a bun in the oven".
― Load up your rubber wallets (Tom D.), Sunday, 16 February 2020 12:17 (four years ago) link
"We're pregnant" is worse
No, you idiot,
she
― they see me lollin' (Ye Mad Puffin), Sunday, 16 February 2020 12:43 (four years ago) link
"we've fallen pregnant" i think is ok
― conrad, Sunday, 16 February 2020 13:05 (four years ago) link
our bun's fallen into the oven
― kinder, Sunday, 16 February 2020 13:10 (four years ago) link
Great news, we're up the duff.
― Load up your rubber wallets (Tom D.), Sunday, 16 February 2020 13:24 (four years ago) link
(week-old xposts) a v occasional and tangential part of my job involves writing emails which go "dear x, as an alumn__ of the University of y you are eligible for..." and the alumnus/-a/-i thing bothers me a lot; picking the right ending can seem too fussy, and alas "alum" seems oldfashioned, but it does bother me seeing "alumni" used in the singular
I think I go with -us as a general singular regardless of gender but sooner or later a classicist/pedant is going to be mad at being misgendered
(but I'm not sure I'd particularly appreciate feeling like someone had taken the time and conscious deliberation to assign me the correct feminine ending either? and then there's the risk of guessing wrong)
― a passing spacecadet, Sunday, 16 February 2020 13:33 (four years ago) link
alumna is the correct neuter plural ending, use that if you want to rile literally everyone
― mark s, Sunday, 16 February 2020 13:36 (four years ago) link
side note: I'm sure I saw a linguistics paper once that said (though the details were way beyond my understanding) that it's no coincidence that Latin and Greek feminine forms, and perhaps other languages too, resemble neuter plurals - but last time I went looking for this theory I couldn't find anything, probably because I don't know any of the relevant words to search for
so if anyone has any idea what I might be talking about please do let me know, esp if you can find a dumbed-down version of the hypothesis suitable for non-book-learnin' morons (mora!) like myself
I say bring back the "Dual" of early & Attic Greek and possibly v. early Latin too: a special ending required for if I have to email exactly two alums at once
― a passing spacecadet, Sunday, 16 February 2020 13:47 (four years ago) link
haven't noticed that yet, but have noticed people pronouncing tenets "tenants."
I've been seeing/hearing this a lot lately and find it vaguely annoying
also, increasingly seeing "slither" used for, I guess, "sliver" - "a little slither of cake" etc - this bothers me for some reason
― a passing spacecadet, Sunday, 16 February 2020 13:48 (four years ago) link
People who say ‘the floor’ when they are talking about/should say ‘the ground’. Cretins.
― santa clause four (suzy), Sunday, 16 February 2020 13:53 (four years ago) link
slither for sliverand phased for fazedannoy the hell out of me
― kinder, Sunday, 16 February 2020 13:56 (four years ago) link
and I'll just say it again: michievious for mischievous
i have started considering the floor-ground thing bcz it so reliably enrages suzy
― mark s, Sunday, 16 February 2020 13:57 (four years ago) link
As Boaby would say, the flerr/grun hing.
― Load up your rubber wallets (Tom D.), Sunday, 16 February 2020 14:00 (four years ago) link
Is this in a gardening context?
― Alba, Sunday, 16 February 2020 14:06 (four years ago) link
‘Forest floor’ is the only acceptable use of ‘floor’ outdoors that I can think of right now. All it takes is a particularly thick police officer talking about someone falling on the floor when it would be accurate to say ground, pavement or road to set me off.
― santa clause four (suzy), Sunday, 16 February 2020 14:18 (four years ago) link
I mean, say what you want about the tenants of National Socialism, Dude, at least it's an ethos.
― romanesque architect (pomenitul), Sunday, 16 February 2020 14:22 (four years ago) link
feel bad about where i dropped those babbies now :(
― babby bitter (Noodle Vague), Sunday, 16 February 2020 14:25 (four years ago) link
Just use deck instead.
― Load up your rubber wallets (Tom D.), Sunday, 16 February 2020 14:27 (four years ago) link
This bad thread is never worse than when it is just listing every meme, but “____ can have a little ____, as a treat” is annoying cause the original image said “cats can have little a salami” and these things matter
― Last night I dreamt I watched The Mandalorian (wins), Sunday, 16 February 2020 15:01 (four years ago) link
"‘Forest floor’ is the only acceptable use of ‘floor’ outdoors that I can think of right now."
How about "ocean floor"?
― Natalie Wouldn't (Ye Mad Puffin), Monday, 17 February 2020 11:36 (four years ago) link
'sleeps' as a noun has been mentioned, but it's still like #1 THE WORST
― i will FP you and your entire family (rip van wanko), Monday, 17 February 2020 13:32 (four years ago) link
Old English had dual forms of 1st and 2nd person pronouns, but they disappeared by the 1300s:
wit "we two"git "us two"unc "you two"inc "you two" (accusative)
Had a neuter third person, too (hit).
― the girl from spirea x (f. hazel), Monday, 17 February 2020 17:17 (four years ago) link
tbf i use all those words except unc, which my niece uses of me
― mark s, Monday, 17 February 2020 17:38 (four years ago) link
Just saying there's an opening for "yeet" as the first-person dual pronoun in Modern English
― the girl from spirea x (f. hazel), Monday, 17 February 2020 18:00 (four years ago) link
a few years i jokingly suggested alumnx as a solution to this problem.
since then i’ve become aware that at least one college has started doing so
― budo jeru, Monday, 17 February 2020 18:05 (four years ago) link
xp
you can just call them "wallets"
― the girl from spirea x (f. hazel), Monday, 17 February 2020 18:31 (four years ago) link
"Fixed your headline for ya"
― Alba, Tuesday, 18 February 2020 23:22 (four years ago) link
― tokyo rosemary, Wednesday, 19 February 2020 03:18 (four years ago) link
Fuck that. Ground is floor. Apartment is house.
― Swilling Ambergris, Esq. (silby), Wednesday, 19 February 2020 04:10 (four years ago) link
-dead prez
― sorry for butt rockin (Neanderthal), Wednesday, 19 February 2020 04:18 (four years ago) link
blame willie dixon
― A is for (Aimless), Wednesday, 19 February 2020 04:26 (four years ago) link
the word "aesthetic" being overused as an adjective, i.e. "that's so aesthetic"
― Lowell N. Behold'n, Wednesday, 19 February 2020 07:54 (four years ago) link
really, when it's used to describe anything, without being used as a prefix
― Lowell N. Behold'n, Wednesday, 19 February 2020 07:58 (four years ago) link
Haven't encountered that... till now.
― Load up your rubber wallets (Tom D.), Wednesday, 19 February 2020 08:00 (four years ago) link