it is rather annoying. people took the time to pronounce "alpha fee," it would be awesome if we could get the same courtesy. it'll catch on someday.

Theta "Kats"

Understandable, but fwiw, "oopsilon" is much closer to the Greek than "yupesilon." In modern Greek, it's actually more like "eepsilon"; in classical Greek the "u" is pronounced more like a French "u" or a German "ü." There never would have been a "y" at the beginning.

Seriously, though, I'm all for pronouncing an GLO's name the way that GLO prefers that it be pronounced, so I will say a sincere thanks for this chance to know what members of Delta Upsilon prefer.

So, I can't call you a FEE MOO ALFAMA?:p;)

I'll never forget my roommate coming back from a ChiO COB party telling me that she was going to be a "Chai Omega". Too bad she was on academic probation, so it was a moot point anyway.

These are all from Otterbein. The nicknames are the original names of the fraternities and sororities. We didn't take letters until the late 20s.

Sororities:
Tau Delta= TeeDee's or Deltas or Tomo Dachi
Sigma Alpha Tau= Owls
Epsilon Kappa Tau= Arbutus (arbutie cuties)
Theta Nu= Greenwhich Girls
Kappa Phi Omega= Onyx
Tau Epsilon Mu= Talisman

Fraternities:
Sigma Delta Phi= Sphinx
Lambda Gamma Epsilon= Kings
Pi Kappa Phi (not the national)= Country Club
Pi Beta Sigma= Pi Sig, or The Bulls...I forgot what two clubs joined together to create them, I know one was the Alps club
Zeta Phi= Zeta, or The Rats (originally the Stars, or so campus legend goes...could be wrong)
Eta Phi Mu= Jonda

As far as the pronunciation thing...I am SO TIRED of hearing people say Alpha Sigma Tau with the tau rhyming with "cow". Wrong wrong wrong! People, you should know how to say the name of the GLOs on your OWN CAMPUS. Even Panhel E-board sometimes gets it wrong.

Thanks, but no. (And Alfama?) There was one person at my school who always called us Fee Mu Alpha. But she was English, so it was automatically cute.

Maybe she was just excited because she thought she thought the Chai O's had their own tea named after them?

(I couldn't think of a way to mispronounce Alpha... Alp-ha? Better?)

I wouldn't put it past her. She was just that special.

Thank you for this! I JUST had this conversation last night with a bunch of people -- I like your description of it sounding like "cow" better, I imagine the word spelled "T-a-o" when pronounced that way, so when they first said it that way my response was, "as in, 'The Tao of Pooh?". So not right.

Actually, Tao is pronounced like "Dow".:p:D

Right. Doesn't "dow" rhyme with "cow"? What I was trying to say was that they mispronounced "Tau" in this way and I was the only one arguing that wasn't how you pronounce "Tau". (I used the "Tao of Pooh" as an example of how I heard the word they were saying, and it wasn't the greek "tau")

Tow (like cow or dow) and Taw (like "all") are both considered acceptable English pronunciations, although the few dictionaries I looked at all gave "Tow" as the preferred (and sometimes only) pronunciation.

In Modern Greek, it's more like "Tahf." (I'm really not making this up, I promise.)

Again, for purposes of Alpha Sigam Tau, I'll defer to your preference.

I guess I should have said that Tao is pronounced "Dow"...not LIKE "Dow". In Pinyin, it can be written as Dao OR Tao, but it's always pronounced with a "D" sound and never a "T" sound.

Ok, well I'm certainly not going to start a debate with you two, I might be new around here but I'm a pretty quick study. :)

I just always learned it is Tau as is "paw". And my Dad was most certainly an Alpha Tau (paw) Omega. My friends were in Sigma Delta Tau (paw). I dated a Delta Tau (paw) Delta. The chapter across the way was Zeta Tau (paw) Alpha. Tau Tau Tau. Paw paw paw. 'sall I'm sayin'. :)

Actually, I've usually heard "taw" as well (and that's what I tend to say). But be that as it may, "tow" is a correct pronunciation, and at least according the dictionaries I looked at, the preferred (by whoever decided) English pronuncation.

It goes back to what I've said before -- we have anglicized the names of most of the Greek letters, and sometimes we have more than one anglicized version (like with T). Going back to AlphaFrog's post above, if we went by Greek pronunciation (modern at least), the name of my fraternity would be pronounced PHEE MEE AH-lpha. :D

That's why I maintain that when it comes to any given GLO, the "correct" way to the pronounce the names of the Greek letters is the way prefered by that GLO.