There's a "What do you call your pledges/new members/whatever" thread somewhere..

I know that Sigma Nu uses "candidates."


ETA: This may be the thread I'm thinking of: What do you call your Pledges?

ETA again: No, I know there's a more recent one. Can't find it though.

Only Ida Shaw Martin knows?!

Do the groups that have 'pearls' then end up with 'baby pearls'?

Wouldn't a baby pearl technically be a grain of sand?

sand or grit... would they then be "baby grits"? "Sandy babies"?

ichuckled.

You silly geese. Pearls are pearls. Our chapters that use "baby" say "baby bugs" as in ladybugs.

I think that the rushees would be grains of sand. There are many of them on the beach, but only a lucky few get to become pearls. :D

Sadly, and maybe it's just my area of the country, I see way too many "Baby Pandas" to count, let alone "Baby Whatevers" for the other chapters at a particular school. It drives me crazy, because college women are not babies in any way.

Personally, I'd rather be a Pledge than a Baby any day of the week.

If the rushees are grains of sand, who/what is the oyster spit? Recruitment?

Phoenix degree. That's when they officially become Pearls. :)

It takes irritation and tears, but eventually, the grains of sand become pearls.

So rush/recruitment is the process that turns sand into pearls.

I attended SFSU Bid Day last week and saw this:
http://a1.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphot...34087143_n.jpg
btw, I'm the photographer

^^With gams being sort of a sexualized slang for legs, I find this very wrong.

ouch.

Oh my God. Who told them they could wear their squirrel suits out in public?! :eek:

No new member I've ever met has seemed to care about being called a baby _____.

That thing on the right creeps me out.

We HAVE to get this to catch on. "Okay girls, oyster spit at 9 PM Sunday...be there or else!!"

lol, they've been doing it for a few bid days now. It's cute in theory..?

I scrolled through my pics and found the decapitated squirrel. Hope it makes you feel a bit better. :)
http://a1.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphot...44431363_n.jpg

this picture made me LOL hard

At Arkansas, the use of "baby___" is rampant. It is relatively new (along with the popularity of intricate handsigns, PULEEZE) and I think the pledges kind of like it. It is used endearingly, "We love our baby Kappas" and seems to be a bit of an ego thing for older members to say.

If the use of the word "pledge" and other related terms (pledge mom/pledge daughter) were eliminated because it was derogatory, then I think "baby" just topped that list.

Actually, I do not think the use of the word 'baby' is terrible - because if you do away with it, then older members will still find a word that conveys the relationship of older/newer membership. "Baby" is endearing in their eyes.

When my daughter was a newborn, I would call her my little baby burrito when she was all swaddled up. I don't think that she's going to like that when she's 18.

Then again, it might not be the "baby" part that she would find so objectionable.

While I was still advising the local chapter, it would amaze me how many rewards, names, and such were extremely juvenile. I can remember the meeting when I knew I wouldn't be an advisor the next year. After quibbling about whether or not Bigelow Blvd should be made student only, the Housing Chair gave out Baby Lion awards for those who did their dishes. Neither had been mentioned during Exec. I asked these 18-22 years old sisters how they expected to cope with life if they couldn't cross a street (oh, the horror!), then the mean advisor, after seeing these goofy awards handed out, asked them if they knew what happens if they do their job once they starting working a real job. They looked at me quizzically, and I responded, "You get to come back the next day!"

And shortly afterwards, I was taken to the detox tank for recovering advisors....

I heart you. :D

There was a training program at a former employer of mine for new college graduates. It was so fun watching them figure out how to navigate the work world. No Baby Lions, Tigers, or Bears (oh my!) were awarded for competence.

This is huge on my campus. I avoid it... although the thought of saying "Thetartots" makes me happy inside.

I heard once that the only thing you do in your first year of work after college is learn how to work. My first job out of college was working at Club Med, which is a WHOLE different thing to learn. But my first real job was working at a huge publishing, media, owns everything type of company. And I think that really is what they taught me... amazing customer service skills and how to just show up and do your friggin job. It was full to popping with drama, and as soon as I was over all that it was time for me to move on. And I think that's how college life works. You go in unknowing and over the 4 years you get yourself into everything, some good, some bad, and just about the time you're ready to star in your own sorority girl massacre movie, you graduate and move onto other things.

Love this!

If they're using it in that way, it IS derogatory and verging on hazing.

I say officially go back to pledge. I never met anyone who minded it, but I can think of LOTS of my sisters who would have never put up with "baby" and laughed outright at the clinical-ness of "new member." (Bringing out "new member" at the height of Beavis and Butt-Head? Seriously people, not a good idea here.)

So many good quotes in the last couple of pages, and so many great laugh-out-loud moments.

Coping with life: always interesting how these young women think that they can ask me for a letter of recommendation, after some of the **** they pull. And I watch these "babies" go out in the world and not even get a toe hold in the work place. Then I wonder who's mean. Being accountable does matter.

Bottom line: it is what it is (ridiculousness), it'll be replaced by something else (of that I'm sure), and I cried when I saw the squirrel head unceremoniously abandoned on the lawn. *sniff* The least they could have done is to close his/her eyes.

[QUOTE=33girl;2093136]There was no usage of Pearl until after at least the 1994 convention, or it might have been 1996. It definitely wasn't used when I was an active.
QUOTE]

It was the 1994/5 year when they revamped and reissued the Encounter that the term pledges was changed to Pearl. I was active at the time.

The appropriate term now is New Member; Pearl is considered slang. Active is also not used, and has been replaced by Collegian or Collegiate Member.

So Pearl Members is out too?

And I do know we're (along w/ everyone else) not supposed to use active, and I usually don't, I was just lazy. :)