to wince every time I see "fora"?

[Mardymwahhaha]

The word forum has become naturalised as an English word surely? Can't people just say forums and stop showing off that they know using the Latin.

I know she is an alumna. That's why I thought she should have written graduate, instead of being pretentious but then getting it wrong.

I thought everybody would get that

"Fora bad. Termini bad. Stadia bad. But phenomena and alumni ok."

I think I am a little in love with PeelThem

I don't see what is wrong with using words correctly, or the correct words...

But I do try not to get too annoyed when other people don?t. Sometimes I am even successful

HeadlessLamAAARRRGHHHH I wonder if the the braindead moron person secretly spits on your panino...

Ooh, thanks Mardy. You have cheered me up after the great alumnus/a misunderstanding . I also make an exception for dah-ta when pronounced by handsome New Zealanders. Reasonable or not?

My old boss used to say dah-ta, but he was Australian, so we let him off

YANBU

There is Pedants' Corner for this type of thing though.

I think that using a word "correctly" depends very much on the context. Generally when a foreign words becomes naturalised into English it then takes on English conventions for plurals etc.

Nobody puts pedants in the corner! Oh wait a minute, you have

I have never had a panino (took 3 attempts to write that as autocorrect was so certain that I meant panini) but I've had many a raviolo - that took several tries too. That said my youthfulish boss has asked me to stop putting an apostrophe before 'phone. Now I like to email him about a '''''''phone call that I've just taken.

I use 'foci'- what on earth is wrong with that?

(I say 'Lexi' to DH too, but it would be a little wanky to use it in common parlance I suppose. And 'penii' )

I'll have to refer this debate to my Old. She's the only person I know who vac-u-erms her carpet. We hoover, for heavens sake!

Trills I deliberately didn't put this in Pedants' Corner because they are all pedanty and would be keen on the "fora" thing. I do hang out there once in a while, but I'm more interested in language change than precision. So, ner.

(refuse to type the alternative)

I would assume that you would know that alumnus or alumna isnt actually a direct synonym for graduate, so I guess we are both wrong.

"alumnus or alumna isnt actually a direct synonym for graduate"

Yeah, but it'll do though.

Well I was going to say YABU for not posting this in Pedants' Corner but what the hell, it's turned into a good discussion.

Anyway, MrsSF, what intrigues me more is how you managed to entrap your husband.

Pedantry and penii darling, obviously!

However, Y A BU for having changed your poxy name so that you're no longer highlighted as the OP! What did you go and do that for, hmmmmm??

Like I said Thzumbie, this is partly anti-pedant. I enjoy pedanting with the rest of them at times (I even yelled "Fewer Emissions" when they used "less" at a car advert the other day). But sometimes, the pedantry becomes poncey imho.

Did you notice that I turned pedant into a verb there.

Yes, sorry, I just read back a bit and saw that - I think I may have been composing my first message when you posted that.
And your name isn't actually poxy, I'm just mildly irritated that you are no longer highlighted.