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Investigative reporter, author and former federal agent Chuck Hustmyre has seen the ugly side of life, from A to Z. Here he gets the last word on politics, crime, local government and pop culture.

OK, I've had enough of those pompous yellow stickers that dot the back bumpers of cars all over South Baton Rouge that read “LSU ALUMNI.”

Translated from the Latin, it means LSU Graduates -- plural.

The sticker is clearly meant to distinguish the driver as an LSU graduate (as in singular).

I've seen them for years around town and I've kept my mouth shut, but I can't take it anymore.

I am an LSU alumnus. My sister is an LSU alumna. By English tradition, though technically still not accurate, together we might be called alumni.

Regardless of what plural form you use, what is clear is that a single person behind the wheel of a car in Baton Rouge, bragging by means of a bumper sticker about graduating from LSU, is not an alumni -- he is an alumnus, or she is an alumna.

In this age of gender-phobia, the LSU Alumni Association, which I believe produces the stickers, has tried to hit upon a gender-neutral Latin term that would apply to either a male or female graduate. However, no such term exists. You see, the Romans did not live in stark terror of offending people with gender specific words, i.e. man, woman; waiter, waitress; host, hostess.

Ironically, if the Alumni Association, or whoever produces the stickers, had stuck to English instead of the more pretentious Latin, the word the organization is so desperately searching for exists and can be used without any verbal torture.

That word is GRADUATE.

No need to twist a chairwoman into a chair, or a waitress into the more sycophantic role of server.

Or, if the organization wanted to be accurate in the use of its chosen language, why not print two sets of stickers, one for male graduates and one for female graduates -- alumnus and alumna. How hard would that be? LSU has men's and women's bathrooms. No one complains about sex specificity there. Why not men's and women's stickers?

If members of a group are going to brag about being alumni of an institution of higher learning, why not use the right word?

The drivers of those cars adorned with the little yellow stickers would do well to remember the words of Mark Twain, "The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter--it's the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning."

What do you say?

Chuck out.

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