With graduation season now upon and spoken Latin falling out of use almost 1,700 years ago, the common conundrum of how to properly use untranslated Latin words that were smuggled into English will be of note in the months to come. Luckily—and unlike many—you will not use the four terms alumnus, alumna, alumni, or alumnae incorrectly, or else will have little excuse, as we have furnished the handy above ‘cheat sheet,’ with word function substituted in place of words like Nominative (Subject) and/ or Vocative (Direct Address). Macrons marking long vowels are also excluded from the chart.

Now unlike the average Latin student of the fourth century—who could be punished for failing to learn his/her lesson, there are not 36 forms but merely four you will have to know to ace this graduation season, with its many congratulatory parties. Knowing the correct form of address can be important, as using the wrong form in heavily-’gendered’ (the word means ‘kind’) languages technically means you are calling someone the gender used.

Big no-no, to say the least. Now as we were saying, there are only four forms in place of 36 that you will have to master for your Latin smuggled into English, as follows.

When addressing a single male, use ‘alumnus.’ When addressing a single female, use ‘alumna.’ When addressing one or more males or else a mixed group of both men and women, use ‘alumni.’ Finally, when addressing or referencing more than a single female in conversation, use ‘alumnae’—that’s it.

Take these basics down, and you’ll have your bases covered at this year’s slate of graduation parties, or your freshman Classical Latin course at college, should you choose such a route.

In that case of course, you’ll have to know all 36 forms, or more likely 30—the vocative is rarely used, but ancient languages aren’t for the fainthearted. In the meantime, English technically has three cases—the nominative, objective, and possessive. Chances are you never had to learn them formally, because you know them intuitively—and that’s the advantage of a first language, just about anywhere. Things

tend to break down with time, and alphabets that are easier to learn tend to spread farther, which might be why we’re using Latin letters in Times New Roman font to convey an English message—unless you have a better theory.