I got an interesting email message last Monday from one of your fellow readers of this blog.

I will refer to her simply as “Paula” because I don’t have permission to use her surname.

Paula had read “Alumnus” vs. “Alumna” vs. “Alumni” vs. “Alumnae”.

She also had seen a link named “Miss ND Alumni” at the top of the Miss North Dakota website.

Paula told me, “I had just dashed off a note to the webmaster of the Miss North Dakota pageant where the menu item is Miss ND Alumni, and I listed the masculine and feminine singular and plural forms of Alumnus.”.

She thanked me for “defending correct English usage”.

Thank you, Paula, for defending correct English usage, too!

And, in case my statement in the earlier post was unclear, let me stress here that it is correct to use the masculine plural form when referring to a group of males and females.

In contrast, because the Miss North Dakota contest is only for women, “Miss ND Alumnae” — not “Miss ND Alumni” — is the correct name for the link on the Miss North Dakota website.