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It is well-known that the English language has borrowed a lot of words from other languages throughout the centuries. Most of these have a meaning that is either the same as in the original language or is slightly modified for figurative reasons - e.g. the word robot (borrowed from the sci-fi plays of a Czech author) literally means a "worker" or the word cannibal (inspired from the endonym Caniba of an indigenous tribe in the Caribbeans, which practiced man-eating) meant in the original language a "human".

There is though a minority of foreign words, usually of Latin origin, whose meaning in English was once the same as in the primary language but eventually has changed due to frequent incorrect usage. A notorious example for this is the phrase:

Someone graduates...

which principally should be:

Someone is graduated...

since the action of graduation is performed by the education body, not by the student.

My question in this relation is how one should apply such foreign words (with an altered, dubious meaning) - in the "proper, but archaic" or in the "improper, but well-established" way?

PS The main motivation for my inquiry is the phrase fresh alumnus, which I'd like to use in the sense "recently graduated (male) student" in a letter to the Head of School of my former college... What bothers me is that the word alumni in Latin referred to any student (graduated or not) / member of staff of an institution, so I worry that fresh alumnus may be perceived as a "recently accepted (male) student".

Dummy
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    For the modern (English) interpretation, surely nothing special required, so by default (unless you are writing perhaps to a Latin professor!) it always means "recently graduated (male) student". – k1eran Apr 02 '16 at 12:22
  • Nicely put question. In your specific example, I'm not sure that alumnus is used to mean exclusively graduates of an institution. M-W defines it as a [male] person who has attended or has graduated from a particular school, college, or university - so I don't think you can use it in the exclusive sense of recently graduated - strictly speaking if you've dropped out without graduating (or perhaps have spent a semester or two as a visiting student) you are just as qualified to call yourself an alumnus. Or Alumna. What's wrong with the term recent graduate anyway? – Charl E Apr 02 '16 at 12:23
  • I simply don't like the word graduate. "I'm a graduate" sounds to me like "I'm an honour". In principle, the correct Latin word for a "recipient of graduation" is graduand, but unfortunately it has got a narrower meaning in English, viz. a student who is about to be graduated. – Dummy Apr 02 '16 at 12:49
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    Unless you have a really good reason for doing otherwise, consult a reliable ("name brand") dictionary and use the definitions found there, avoiding any identified as archaic. And use your judgment and avoid completely words that you are unsure of and cannot get a clear "fix" on using the dictionary. – Hot Licks Apr 02 '16 at 12:50
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    (And can you identify a word in English that is not "foreign"?) – Hot Licks Apr 02 '16 at 12:53
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    I don't understand the point of this question. So what if alumnus originally meant [any] student in Latin? I'm sure all modern *English* dictionaries will define the current sense as *former student. Words mean whatever the majority agree on today*, not what some pedantic etymologist might be able to dig up about related usages in dead languages. – FumbleFingers Apr 02 '16 at 13:04
  • @HotLicks: Good remark :) I guess by "not-foreign" should be understood all words of Anglo-Saxon origin which were influenced by the typical English sound changes - e.g. wish is a "native" word, desire is "foreign".

    I should point out, though, that words like desire don't have dubious meaning in English, despite slightly diverging from its original French sense.

     – Dummy Apr 02 '16 at 13:05
  • For the most part the "dubious" meaning of "alumnus" is due to it being batted back and forth in academia for several hundred years before it became a part of the general argot. Says more about academia than it does about the origin/meaning of the word. – Hot Licks Apr 02 '16 at 13:10
  • @FumbleFingers: The problem is that most dictionaries give both the modern and the archaic meaning. Furthermore, in other languages it is accepted as a sign of low culture to use foreign word with their modern altered meaning. That's why I wanted to ask how is the situation in English. – Dummy Apr 02 '16 at 13:13
  • As an example I can give Alma Mater, which in the Eastern Bloc used to mean any advanced educational institution (universities, institutes for education, polytechniques, etc), but nowadays is accepted to mean what it's originally meant in Latin - i.e. the main campus of a filial university. – Dummy Apr 02 '16 at 13:28
  • @Dummy: I've never heard of that *alma mater = the main campus of a filial university* definition, and it's not listed in the full OED. Are you sure that's a genuine usage among native speakers? It sounds like one of those "lost in translation" usages an nns might make. – FumbleFingers Apr 02 '16 at 14:51
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    A notorious example for this is the phrase:

    Someone graduates... which principally should be:

    Someone is graduated... since the action of graduation is performed by the education body, not by the student. // I'll say you've made three errors (ignoring the phrase or clause issue) there. // A celebrated example for this is the expression:

    Someone graduates which once would almost always have been rendered:

    Someone is graduated since the action of graduation was always considered to be performed by the education body, not by the student.

     – Edwin Ashworth Apr 02 '16 at 15:08
  • @EdwinAshworth - A perfectly reasonable explanation (not necessarily a true one) is the alternative meaning of graduated - marked at increasing increments, as a graduated cylinder. To say that a student is graduated is to invite the question of whether his graduation is in milliliters or ounces. – WhatRoughBeast Apr 02 '16 at 17:20
  • So, rather than "I'm a graduate" say "I'm a measuring cup". – Hot Licks Apr 02 '16 at 19:04
  • I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it is either essentially an appeal to justify the etymological fallacy or a far too complicated and unresourced version of 'Can I use 'fresh alumnus' to mean 'recently graduated student'? – Edwin Ashworth Apr 02 '16 at 22:34
  • On the is graduate question, see “Will graduate” vs. “will be graduated” vs. “is going to graduate” On the reason etymology does not determine the modern meaning of words, see How to guess/divine definitions from etymology? OP's hangups about alumnus and graduate are in his own head; this question seems unlikely to help future visitors. – choster Apr 02 '16 at 23:15

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Once a word has come to be used in English, its meaning in Latin or any other language is a complete irrelevance. It may have an English meaning which is very close to its original meaning, or one which is utterly different. Sometimes it has both, and different people use it in different ways.

In every case, what matters is its meaning in English. If you insist on using a word in a different way from most people (whether on account of its former meaning or for any other reason) you risk being misunderstood, or thought strange. If you choose to use a word which has acquired divergent meanings, again you might be misunderstood.

I avoid using the word crescendo except in its technical musical sense ("getting louder") because, as a musician, I do not like its present-day English meaning of "a climax". But I do not pretend not to understand when people use it that way, or try to "correct" them; and I would generally not pointedly use it in a non-musical context in a way which is at odds with its present meaning in English.

Colin Fine
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The main motivation for my inquiry is the phrase fresh alumnus, which I'd like to use in the sense "recently graduated (male) student"

Sounds like you are describing a

Recent graduate

Here's an example of usage:

The Recent Graduate Program is a one-year program that targets individuals who have recently graduated from qualifying educational institutions or programs. Successful applicants will be placed in a dynamic, one year career development program.

usajobs.gov

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candied_orange
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To underscore the futility of your task, consider how easy it is to get the "original" meanings wrong.

The Caniba, a tribe of the Abenaki (or Kennebec) Indians of Maine, did not lend their name to the word cannibal. That was the Caribes, whose name and dietary habits were misunderstood by Europeans.

The word robot did not mean worker. It meant forced laborer, and it was adapted by Karel Čapek for his play R.U.R. or Rossum's Universal Robots. His robots were synthesized humans but without souls or emotions. Since our biochemical capabilities aren't up to that of 1920's fiction, our robots are strictly mechanical.

For modern discourse, "proper but archaic" is a contradiction. One guide might be the age of the usage that you consider improper, and here the OED is a valuable tool. The use of graduate as an action of a student dates from the 1870s; the use of alumnus to describe one with past attendance at a school, from the 1690s.

deadrat
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