The chemistry of Judi Dench: a rant.

There is nothing like a dame, or so the song says, and Dame Judi Dench has long been one of the wonders of the world: a very good actress, and by all accounts a very good companion, too, with a deeply impressive habit of learning some poetry every day.

Dame Judi can be equally convincing as a queen (Shakespeare in Love, 1998, Mrs Brown, 1997), a philosopher (Iris, 2001), a teacher (Notes on a Scandal, 2006) and a cynical critic (Rage, 2009).

But there are things even beyond the range of Dame Judi, and I doubt she could come even close to...well, this claim, below, which was made in the Telegraph online newspaper.

So infinitesimally nuanced is the acting of this star alum of the Royal Shakespeare Company that it only took an eight-minute turn as Queen Elizabeth I in Shakespeare in Love (1998) to win her an Oscar. 

An alum? A star alum? As in, the colourless hydrated sulphate of aluminium and potassium used for setting dyes, treating leather and paper, and to stop bleeding?

Or does that mean, more loosely, any isomorphic double sulphate of a monovalent metal and a trivalent metal, formula:

 X₂SO₄.Y₂(SO₄)₃.24H₂O 

where X is monovalent and Y is trivalent? 

Or, on the other hand, is it just that the writer was in terror of the female ending of the word alumna and has been panicked into nonsense?

I know what I think.

Word To Use Today: alumna. This is from the Latin word alere to nourish, and means nurseling or foster daughter or pupil.