Alum used to be a chemical that was helpful with mouth ulcers and such things. No more

Kel Richards

A reader has alerted me to the use of an odd word ‘alum’ to refer to the graduates of his old university. When he wrote to protest that this was a nonsense word he was told ‘Alum is the non-gender specific term for a singular graduate (rather than specifying gender – alumnus/masculine or alumna/feminine)…’

He was also told that ‘alum’ had been coined in the 19th century. Which rather surprised him, since he hadn’t realised the 19th century was flush was trans-gender issues (and the fear of being transphobic). He asked me to investigate.

After some digging, I discovered that ‘alum’ is indeed recorded in the Oxford as American ‘non-standard’ usage from 1877 with the meaning you’d expect: ‘A former student of a school, university, etc.; an alumnus or alumna’.

But it had nothing to do with gender. As I read the citations it seems to have begun as an abbreviation rather than as a non-gender-specific term. It’s only around the year 2000 that wokeness took over and unis started referring to their graduates using a word that makes them sound like ‘an astringent mineral salt, typically occurring as colourless or whitish crystals’.

https://spectator.com.au/2022/08/language-23/

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com/ (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

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