Common English Blunders

“Alumni” Revisited

Common English Blunders, Nouns, Plurals

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.

“She is a bimbo.”

Common English Blunders, Foreign Languages, Number

I have lost track of how many times I have heard this.

Problem:
The gender of the noun does not match the gender of the pronoun.

Explanation:
The noun “bimbo” comes from Italian and refers in Italian to a male child, male infant, or male baby.

As Dictionary.com explains, one of the definitions of “bimbo” in American English is “an attractive but stupid young woman, esp. one with loose morals.”

I do not know how a masculine Italian noun became a feminine English noun that is disparaging and offensive but makes no comment on the target’s sexuality.

But, ever since I learned enough Italian to appreciate the gender pattern in masculine and feminine Italian nouns, whether singular or plural, I have been bothered by how ignorant “She is a bimbo.” sounds.

The feminine form of “bimbo” is “bimba”, which gives us the solution.

Solution:
“She is a bimba.”

“Disasters … often bring people closer to God.”

Common English Blunders, Verbs

I heard this four days ago on a History Channel television program.

Problem:
I frequently hear “bring” when the speaker means “take” instead.

Explanation:
I was watching a History Channel program when I heard, “Disasters … often bring people closer to God.”

The verb “bring” in the common expression “bring people closer to God” finally caught my ear — as wrong!

You see, one should use “bring” when one is telling the listener to transport something to a location where one currently resides, or when the subject of the sentence is telling another party in the sentence to transport something to the subject’s location.

“Bring” Examples:

  1. Please bring the package to me.
  2. Jim, who lives in Denver, asked Mary to bring the package to him from his friend in London.

In contrast, one should use “take” when one is telling the listener to transport something to a location other than where one currently resides, or when the subject of the sentence is telling another party in the sentence to transport something to a location other than the subject’s location.

“Take” Examples:

  1. Please take this package to my friend in London.
  2. Jim, who today is in Houston on business, asked Mary to take the package to his friend in London.

So, if someone says, “X brings Y closer to God.”, then “X” currently resides with God and is drawing or attracting “Y” to the location shared by “X” and God.

In contrast, if someone says, “X takes Y closer to God.”, then the current location of “X” is different than the current location of God, and “X” is transporting “Y” to God’s location.

Some — such as insurance-company policy writers! — might argue that disasters reside exactly where God resides, in which case “bring” is the correct verb.

However, I strongly suspect that most speakers of “Disasters … often bring people closer to God.” either assume that God resides somewhere other than where disasters reside or give no thought to it.

For fun, I searched Google for each of the following expressions (with the quotation marks) and got the indicated numbers of matches:

  • “bring people closer to God” — about 11,600 matches
  • “take people closer to God” — exactly 6 matches

This tells me that Web authors have used the incorrect vs. correct expression by a ratio of 1933-to-1, which is dreadful on a Biblical scale.

Solution:
“Disasters … often take people closer to God.”