You should send this for real. Or, probably you shouldn't, but it would make me happy if you did.
I don't understand this, though: (I cannot say I have ever meet a fellow alumna).
I am not an alumna; how could I have met a fellow alumna?
Did the letter you're responding to actually refer to 'fellow alumnae' rather than 'alumnae/i' or some such? Because that is odd of them.
It said "when you meet a fellow alumnus/a". Why not "fellow graduate"? Beats me.
how could I have met a fellow alumna?
An alumna is, by definition, not a fellow.
Allow me to nip in the bud any attempts at puns based on the post's title and A Nightmare on Elm Street.
2: I agree that "fellow alumna" by itself would have sounded odd, because apposite "fellow" implies "the same as you," but "fellow alumnus/a" I think loses that implication, or rather, the implication extends only to what is common between alumni and alumnae, i.e., being a graduate.
A less little-bitchy way to parse "fellow alumnus/a" would be to see "alumnus/a" as "one from the set of {alumnus, alumna}". "Fellow" modifies this "one from the set of" construction. You, an alumnus, are a member of the set, but so are all alumnae, and hence, you are fellow members of the set.
Just sayin.
8: less little-bitchy? Or less U of C?
pwned by Minivet, god damnit. Serves me right for commenting when I should instead be working on a cover letter in the 15 minutes remaining before I must leave, in order set up a buffet as a volunteer at a German-American business finance event. As you can see, I still have hopes of marrying a wealthy European woman and becoming a kept man.
8: I think my version was equally U of C, if we're interpreting that as "more precise and technical than the situation calls for"; it was the uncharitable dorkiness of your original construction that made it little-bitchy. But I'll defer to the collective wisdom of The Mineshaft as far as properly capturing the sense of either U of Cness or little-bitchiness.
Minivet and Trapnel identify my confusion. I am vaguely reminded of the law school professor who thought it was comic to refer to Scalia as having made ad feminam attacks on O'Connor.
"fellow alumnum"
Fellow aluminum. Or aluminium, if you wanted to put on airs.
Speaking of U of C, for some reason I only discovered the other day that Coetzee was (had been?) a professor there. Not that I'd ever have taken classes with him had I known, philistine that I was.
Speaking of Coetzee, I learned from the very same blurb that he was a computer programmer back in the 60s. And apparently his dissertation "was on computer stylistic analysis of the works of Samuel Beckett." Crazy!
Is it really a dunning letter if you don't owe them money?
Also, do you really think that Latin words in English contexts ought to be declined? How do you feel about 'alumni center' as opposed to 'alumnorum center'?
And you could call reunions alumnorumoramas.
A railroad train loaded with cowboys and railroaders pulls in. [Gunshots.] The buffalo are scattered and the herd is split.
COWBOY: Hey! What we stoppin' fer?
CONDUCTOR: Cain't go no further. This here's Injun Territory!
GOVERNMENT AGENT: Well, then! It's--Treaty Time!
A brass band enters, playing "Hail to the Chief" [out of tune].
GOVERNMENT AGENT [in a glib and supercilious tone]: My fellow Redskins! Speaking for the Great White Father in Washington and all the American People, let me say we respect
you Savages for your Native ability to instantly adapt and survive in whatever Godforsaken wilderness we move you to. . . . Out there. Sign here
Temporarily Humboldt County
Also, do you really think that Latin words in English contexts ought to be declined?
Apparently he does believe that 'alumnus/a' should be declined. In favor of its English equivalent, graduate.
That is a truly amazing letter and it would be even greater if you did actually send it, with signature intact.
Do not forget: The University of Chicago was on the banned list.
14: Fellow aluminum. Or aluminium, if you wanted to put on airs.
Or alumium if you wanted to go really old school.
I don't think anyone would care about the proper declension of "alumnus" if it weren't an example of default-is-male. I tend to say "alums" and hope this becomes a formal option on the future.
Birthdays, especially round-numbered ones, provide convenient opportunities to (i) meet the filthy apparition that taunts one's failure to meet not just high or ambitious standards, but, really, any standard at all and (ii) feel the cold knife of solitude at its pointiest.
Send the letter! Send it! Or at least tell us you did; we don't know any better.
I dislike beginning sentences and paragraphs with "Since...." It's ugly.
Gender is one thing, declension another. Neb said, either seriously or not, that he would use 'alumnum'.
Good luck, Abe.
16 is right. Dunning letters are letters demanding payment of debt, I thought.
I'm never going to send the UofC cash money (probably), but I have long planned to donate a water fountain inscribed ἄριστον μὲν ὒδωρ.
31: I had a classmate who made mugs with the same inscription.
ἄριστον μὲν ὒδωρ is Greek for "Whites only", right?
Shockingly, my alma mater does not pester me for money more than twice a year or so. Of course, this benign neglect is somewhat undone by their practice of having the student workers who make the telephonic solicitations pretend to be current students in my major.
I have long advocated "alumnum" as a gender-neutral alternative to other forms of that noun.
This is a novel approach to the job search cover letter!
Please send this letter. It's so great.
OT: I don't complain about traffic much, but I'm trying to drive 4.5 miles and we're now in minute 47.
Send it, neb! An anecdote: my daughter applied to my college and was rejected. They later mailed me a very professional DVD outlining why I should contribute to the new capital campaign, especially for the sake of future generations of students.
I wrote to the Senior VP of Development, telling him exactly why I did not plan to contribute to said capital campaign. I copied the university president and the dean of admissions. Much to their credit, the Senior VP called me "to check in" and the dean wrote a letter saying how he/they would welcome my daughter's transfer application. Mutual warm regards as fellow alumni were exchanged, but I wasn't moved sufficiently to give another red cent to that pack of scoundrels. (OK, OK, applying was my daughter's idea, and she really didn't have the scores, and it wasn't her first choice. But still....)
38: You really shouldn't be commenting while you drive.
16/30: I checked this, actually! Third OED entry for dun-the-verb:
1. trans. To make repeated and persistent demands upon, to importune; esp. for money due.
2. transf. To pester, plague, assail constantly.
With just (1) my use would be iffy, but I consider myself much pestered and plagued by letters from my alma mater asking for money.
Also, do you really think that Latin words in English contexts ought to be declined?
I have used all of the following when context demanded:
vivam vocem
sine quibus non
in mediis rebus
(But when I said I'd use "alumnum", that was as the neuter nominative, not as the masc. accusative, even though "fellow alumnus/a" is the object of "meet" in the English sentence.)
oudemia: an excellent notion. as to neb's "fellow alumna" construction it has long been my opinion that there is no amount of little bitchery that would be too bitchy for chicago. my husband is a graduate, meaning that he would regard it as OK for our children to go there. I find this prospect wrong and disturbing, and the fact that I have merely 8 more years to avoid the possibility (in the form of applications et al) alarms me. I hope that having raised my children in the tropics will continue on its present course of making unable to tolerate cold, at which point they will be easy to dissuade. plus, maybe they won't be giant nerds. (sorry, u of c peeps). though god knows I went to the nerdiest ivy. it's just that it's in NYC! everybody loves new york! [n.b. many people hate new york but my children are not among them.]
oh neb. 41 last is so wrong. that's just the type of thing that can happen if you let your kids go to chicago, see!
oh neb. 41 last is so wrong
I swear to god, once many years ago you defended me when I did exactly what you're now decrying, and even found it charming.
42: neuter? really? wouldn't we just revert to alumnus if we were being sticklers for accuracy? I've done a lot of latin prose comp in my day, and I am skeptical.
it occurs to me that simultaneously complaining about nerdiness and discussing multiple years spent doing latin prose composition is perhaps unconvincing. I did greek verse composition for christ's sake, not for a whole semester but as part of a 2-person seminar on meter in greek poetry. TOO HARD. ok, fuck, they can go to u of c, who am I to judge.
45: sure, but I am a fickle woman. you know we're all like this, right?
wouldn't we just revert to alumnus if we were being sticklers for accuracy?
This is the U of C we're talking about.
45: OK, and truthfully it is charming in you that you did that, without it's being globally the case that one should. because you have your own personal charms.
wouldn't we just revert to alumnus if we were being sticklers for accuracy?
How would that make it more accurate? IIR the rules C "alumni" for a group of graduates would be technically correct as long as there was at least one male graduate in the group, but if we're taking graduates individually, some will indisputably be women.
I suggested "alumnum" on the grounds that since it's at least not specifically male or specifically female, so you're getting everyone wrong the same way, you aren't privileging the male or the female form, and you don't need to worry about awkward slashes or anything. Think of it as being like singular "they".
This is the U of C we're talking about.
Coeducational from the get-go!
The University of Chicago was founded by John D. Rockefeller, the worst of all Rockefellers.
yeah, but I'm just saying I don't think a latin speaker would recognize that as a way to avoid confusion even had the whole situation been put before them. that is, they would consider the masculine to retain its ability to incorporate the feminine even in the singular.
51: a fair point! unlike some universities we could mention.
51: Mostly I was thinking of it as a place where the students' gender was less likely to be a salient fact for them than at most schools.
||
Gene Marks's column got me thinking. I'm no smarter than your average rich white motivational speaker. I have it much easier than them, too - no traveling, no memorization, no having to constantly be "on". The world is not fair to them mainly because they had the misfortune of being able to package trite aphorisms into outline form. This is a fact. In 2011.
I am not a motivational speaker. I am a young black man who grew up a poor black kid. So life was easier for me. But that doesn't mean that the prospects are impossible for motivational speakers on their grind. [...] Every rich white motivational speaker can succeed. Still. In 2011.
It takes brains. It takes hard work. And a little national publication believing in you and your largely unfounded advice to a group of people you have no contact with except through reruns of Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. It takes the ability to churn out a thousand words that seem right to your audience, which is a group that is exactly the opposite of the people you're supposedly advising. And technology. I have a Kindle.
||>
but now I realize that the alleged motivation for 53 is entirely at odds with complaining about the deployment of in mediis rebus; this my fickle nature has contradicted itself in the space of 10 comments. women!
13: Especially annoying as the standard phrase is not ad virum.
59: pre-motherfucking-cisely. if echt-little bitchery is to be deployed, it must be hyper-correct.
I was thinking something along the lines of 59 so I looked up homo in Lewis and Short to check, and it says that it (homo) can be used to mean "man" in the sense that contrasts with "woman".
That's pretty obviously not what's going on with ad hominem, though.
57: oh man, I want to make millions of spider eye-babies with jesse taylor. I wish someone would offer him a well-paid job as a full-time blogger.
62: The OLD has no such entry. Does [do?] Lewis and Short give examples?
Yeah: "I.B.2. In opp. to a woman, a man (anteand post-class., and very rare): "mi homo et mea mulier, vos saluto," Plaut. Cist. 4, 2, 57; Lact. 2, 12; Dig. 48, 19, 38."
Sense II. contains uses for particular people ("the man, the fellow").
65: Cool, thanks. There turns out to be a similar story about ἄνθρωπος. The LSJ says at the end of its entry: "Prop. opp. θηρίον, cf. ἀνήρ; but opp. γυνή, Aeschin. 3.137; ἀπο ἀνθρώπου ἕως γυναικός Lxx 1 Es. 9.40, etc."
people other than myself settling disputes by referring to the very final examples of a definition in the LSJ is why I love you all so much. let's let our freak nerd flag fly!
65, 66: Interesting. The parallel to English "man" is striking.
I swear to god, once many years ago you defended me when I did exactly what you're now decrying, and even found it charming.
Do not tell me I've changed /
You're just raising your standards!
(Question: do we think that song is expressing Nice Guy^TM misogyny about "deserving" a certain quality partner, or instead giving voice to a not-particularly-sexist cri-de-coeur against the lack of empathy that often comes with one's station rising in the world--a lack of empathy that is perhaps most often turned against women, e.g., first wives who've supported their husbands only to see them "trade up"?)
trapnel, once again I must remind you that bitches be tripping all the time. I can't listen to the song because I'm in a taxi, but I'll do so later. the canonical nice guy tm song is the weezer one about how he wants a girl who will not put her makeup on when he's not there. the song is sarcastic, though, making fun of, rather than defending nice guy-ness.
the song is sarcastic, though, making fun of, rather than defending nice guy-ness
Is it, really? I dunno. So much of the Weezer oeuvre is like that--I mean, all of Pinkerton, for starters--that at a certain point you really wonder. It's like the guy who talks about how much of a dick and how much he needs to change--stop talking about it and just do it, dude.
Then again, your interpretation allows me to enjoy the songs without guilt, so there's that.
I also receive regular dunning letters and calls from my alma mater (see neb how I mock you with my undeclined indirect object) but feel no guilt at turning them down since it is the third richest institution in the country, after the Queen and the Church of England.
41. Viva voce is an ablative absolute phrase; I can imagine Vivis vocibus at a pinch, but I do not think vivam vocem means what you think it means.
43: I thought the nerdiest Ivy was Yale.
Didn't we have a whole thread about that Weezer song once?
Also, damn you people comment a lot. I've been busy for the last week and now I feel compelled to catch up on the last ten threads.
Oh, right, I'm thinking of this thread which was the one where I learned about Janelle Monáe.
75: you think? hmmm. I guess I'm not sure about stereotypes about columbia otherwise. the ivy with the most jews? I must confess that I'm giving girl x fencing lessons starting now. in my defense, she asked to do it, because we go by the place all the time and one of her friends has done it and enjoys it. still, since it's the only sport columbia is any good at, I do think if she gets good over the next 8 years it would be advantageous. because I am a scheming bourgeois parent. she has been complaining about having to study mandarin all the time. I may have to learn it to help her. fuck I don't have enough free time for that. girl y started at 3 and a half rather than 5 and it has made a big difference. her complaint is "mandarin is easy to speak but too hard to write!" (she is really learning the characters now, in 2nd grade.) I told her chinese kids have been bitching about that for like 2000 years.
71: I've decided much of later weezer is non-canon, so it doesn't cast harsh shadows on the earlier songs.
62, 65: Interesting. If I google, I can find cites where 'people' is used in opposition to women (Google search for "people and women".) About half of the cites are feminist discussion of language that excludes women, and half of the rest aren't relevant. But there's a number of hits for things like "black people and women" or "young people and women" that use 'people' in a way that implicitly excludes women. Not exactly the same as "My person and my woman, I greet you", but not too far off.
It's the later Weezer that's canonical. The early Weezer is a juvenile attempt by people not completely the master of their material. Late Weezer is like Beethoven's late quartets. History will prove me right on this.
the ivy with the most jews?
I'm sure I don't know, Mr. Nixon.
still, since it's the only sport columbia is any good at....
Squash? I used to play squash, badly, with a friend of mine who was in the Business School at the time, and the courts seemed well-maintained but a little disused.
I've decided much of later weezer is non-canon....
I try not to let Internet criticisms* affect my thinking about artworks, but, really, is any era of look at this founding hipster Weezer worth saving?
* Privileged, heteronormativist, Nice, cisgender, etc., etc.
79: Columbia, like Ivy league Columbia? My daughter is currently attending. Are you affiliated?
she has been complaining about having to study mandarin all the time. I may have to learn it to help her.
I had a lovely chat with a Chinese woman on the train this morning. After we went all the way through a notepad filled with neatly written English and Chinese phrases, I showed her my Christmas holiday cards (which have a dove and the word Peace in many languages, because I'm a hippie Quaker) and I tried pronouncing one word. After approximately thirty tries, I sort of got it.
In conclusion, Chinese tones are hard, but being able to speak to tourists is fun!
tripp: I am just an alumna.
83: weezer's first album is genius, and has held up very well in the intervening 15+ years. "say it ain't so" is a wonderful song that gives me gooseflesh (all songs I feel truly emotional about do this).
I'm confident I could learn chinese with enough intensive practice, but I don't see where the time's going to come from...
78: Oh, right, I'm thinking of this thread which was the one where I learned about Janelle Monáe.
I was mildly amazed that Sugarland sang at this year's Nobel Peace Prize concert, along with Ms. Monáe and other luminaries.
"Count de Money!"
"De Monae--"
"Don't correct me."
once again I must remind you that bitches be tripping all the time
A lady has an adult daughter (teen but legal adult) who works at a certain fast food sandwich chain. According to mom a co-worker at this establishment is "turning my daughter into a lesbian". Having taken a strong "nurture" side on the issue of origins of homosexuality she decides to remedy this situation by getting roaring drunk and going into her daughter's workplace. It's said a picture is worth a thousand words but you know what also says a lot? SWINGING AROUND A MOTHERFUCKING BAT. Homewrecking lesbian co-worker and the daughter dodge a few bat swings, mom whacks the counter a couple times, and then mom takes off in a car.
I'm actually not very far from this call but thankfully a couple other units are even closer and I can continue eating my roast chicken leg. The unit on scene calls out that he thinks he just saw mom drive by in the same direction she supposedly left. Now I'm thinking "are you kidding me, is this drunk fool really circling the area waiting for us to leave?". So I head towards what I think is her likely route. Fuck no I'm not putting down my chicken leg. I can totally catch perps while eating chicken, 'cause that's how I roll. You might be wondering if the chicken eating is tactically sound? Yes. It's a leg and is in my left hand, leaving my gun hand free if shit goes down.
Sure enough here comes mom along the street I thought she'd take and I pull in behind her. The gravity of her situation starts to dawn on her and she pulls into a 7-11. The patrons of the sev get their commute home livened up by the spectacle of a brief foot pursuit across the parking lot and me dragging drunken mom back to my car in handcuffs. Bonus for the bat being on her front seat and an open Corona in the cupholder. Double bonus that the car is stolen.
Drunken mom's sister shows up to the scene and seems pretty happy her sister is going to jail. Says the mom has alienated the whole family as well as her friends. Apparently the car wasn't stolen from a stranger. Sis tells us that just before her sister blocked the family from her Facebook account someone left a message on her sisters wall, "bitch you stole my car". And I got to finish my chicken while waiting for the tow truck. Win win.
brief foot pursuit across the parking lot
Chicken still in hand?
Unfortunately I had to put my chicken down for the pursuit. Handcuffing takes two hands.
90: That's even better than the story about Seymour Hersh, hot on a story in a way that journalists generally aren't anymore, darting into a restaurant and swiping a chicken leg from a stranger, then getting back into his taxi, gnawing.
81
... But there's a number of hits for things like "black people and women" or "young people and women" that use 'people' in a way that implicitly excludes women. ...
How are women being implicitly excluded in those examples?
Double bonus that the car is stolen.
Just how many cherries can fit atop that sundae of awesomeness?
don't pretend to be an idiot, shearer. it's unbecoming. we all know you already.
sure, but I am a fickle woman. you know we're all like this, right?
Bitchibus trippando sunt?
(Sorry, Tweety and I spent a while making up Esperanto and apparently now I feel entitled to make up Latin despite the fact that Latin is way less made up than Esperanto.)
I can certainly imagine uses that would implicitly exclude women, but it's not obvious at all that all (or most) would. E.g., "black/young people and women were both key demographic groups to President Obama's victory in 2008" seems like a plausible place for that construction to appear, and isn't meant to exclude the women from the people. Right?
98: Some do, and some don't. It's just interesting that both in Latin and English, we've got a word who's primary meaning is 'people' or 'humans', but where you can find the occasional example where it's used to mean 'not women.'
99: Yeah, English sucks that way.
On the other hand, I've hanging around with a database crowd lately and boy do they parse the world in a different way. I'm still trying to put my finger on what it is exactly.
97 would be closer to "women must be tripped" which seems a little harsh.
99: the whole first page of results are either of the form "black/young people and women were both key demographic groups to President Obama's victory in 2008" - ie non-exclusive - or consist of people complaining that other unspecified people say "people and women" to exclude women.
41. Viva voce is an ablative absolute phrase; I can imagine Vivis vocibus at a pinch, but I do not think vivam vocem means what you think it means.
I'm unsure what you think I think vivam vocem means. The fact that the other two examples in that list were pluralizations of phrases normally seen in English in the singular doesn't indicate that that one was intended to be the same. I do know vox from voce, you know!
Try the second hit. It's a feminist complaint, but about a specific quote: "Crescent Moon for Shawwal has been seen by two persons and a sister on Monday, August 29 at the tip of South America with naked eye".
I'm not claiming that "people and women", where "people" means "not women" are common or normal, just that instances can be found. And on that basis I'm sort of wondering if the citations for "homo" where it's in opposition to "femina" are sufficient to establish that "homo" really had a meaning of "only male humans", or if those citations are oddities like the possible English citations for "people" not meaning "women".
104: In Lewis and Short it's specifically marked as "rare", anyway.
On a related note, my sense is that use of 'man' and 'men' to refer to human beings in English is far more common than similar uses of vir and viri in Latin or aner and andres in Greek. True?
106: Yes. "Man" really does have a standard meaning in English where it means "humans", not "male humans" ("Man will kill for food. Also, frequently there must be a beverage.) I'm fairly sure it would be strange to use 'viri' in Latin if you didn't want to exclude 'feminae'.
Is it "feminae" or "mulieri"? What's the difference?
Dunno. My Latin's twenty years rusty.
108. Whichever, really. The definition for Femina seems to suggest a slightly broader concept, but close enough to synonymous.
Googling says they're synonyms.
Now I'm imagining a world where mulier won out in Latinate languages and borrowings. Muliebrism. Cherchez la mulle. Mulienazis.
Muliebrity is an English word. Not a very common one, but it exists. I can't think of anything else formed from 'mulier'. Although I keep on looking at it and seeing the comparative form of the adjective 'muley'.
Now I'm imagining a world where mulier won out in Latinate languages and borrowings. Muliebrism. Cherchez la mulle. Mulienazis.
But maybe evolved a bit to... something like Mujer?
I don't believe for an instant that there could be any mechanism at all by which "mulier" could have become "mujer", chris.
What would mujer even mean? More mujey? Mujey isn't a word.
No need to get all mujier-than-thou, gender-non-specific-guys.
114: Oh, right.
I know muliebrity, though Chrome doesn't. Muliebrism is what I imagine the sociopolitical movement would be called.
The Romanian also derives from mulier.
Christ, Esperanto for "woman" is "man" + the feminine suffix!
I don't know Esperanto, but is that man=vir or man=homo? Because if the word is human with no suffix, woman with the feminine, and male-human-man with the masculine, then that'd be symmetrical. Or, if it's same word for male-man and human-person-generally, with a feminine suffix to make it woman, that is a pity.
Research indicates that the Rumansch is "Dunna", just to be perverse. "Femna" exists but is deprecated (not clear why).
Mingling with the crowd gathered outside the burning dwelling, the ill-starred lexicographer simply could not restrain himself; after smugly flaunting the word ucalegon several dozen times, he was set upon by his neighbors and cast into the flames.-- Novobatzky & Shea, Depraved and Insulting English (2002)
Virino, from viro, male, as opposed to from homo, human being. Homino is also a word, but Wiktionary says it's less frequently used. There's no masculine suffix.