It's okay.. guys still know that ALL women are crazy, not just Southern ones. :p

lol.;)

You just made my day. :D

I certainly didn't say what I did was right, just that I understood being overprotective of letters. And I didn't damage her car in taking them off "ripping" them off may be an overstatement. I removed them. And yes, I was very certain it was still her and only her car at the time. I'll admit to it being out of line. A lot of us knew her really well and were really upset about her actions.

And really, no I don't see it as being more shameful. If someone asked me what I was doing then, I'd be honest about it. Honestly, stealing letters is somewhat identity fraud. She is claiming a relationship to me that she does not have, and I didn't want anybody to confuse that fact. If I had walked by and done nothing, those watching may assume that she is part of my GLO or that I simply don't care about the reputation of my letters. Maybe I have misplaced some of my value judgement about my letters, but I doubt it.
It was immature, welcome to college. I'm so glad everyone else seems to be soooooo above it. Congrats if you are, you win a better-than-me personal presentation on the internet award.

At best, I didn't handle the situation in the best way. But it cant' be said she had a right to those letters, and as we have the obligation to take back stuff with letters or ritual (pins) from depinned members, I figured we should probably take off the stuff from a nonmember. Didn't really know whose job it was to do that, so I took it into my own hands.

Also, as per the name, it was what I thought of on the fly. Sorry I'm not very creative or up to some other southern woman's standards. It's a message board darling, I'm not introducing myself in the street as "southern sugar". I am very south-of-the-mason-dixie line, it's the culture that I understand and an identifying mark. I enjoyed the alliteration and simply how it rolled off the tongue. Plus, i have an aversion to numbers in screen names as they're just not aesthetically pleasing. And hard to get in the right order sometimes.

Exactly, DARLING. You are bringing a bad name to the "Southern" culture you claim to understand so well. And, no, your asinine ideas on how your group's letters somehow BELONG to you and GIVE you the right to bother others property in your group's name DO NOT meet the standards of the Southern women on here.

One last thing, DARLING. You're right it IS just a message board. Keep sticking your foot in your mouth trying to defend your stupid actions... I'll keep reading and being appalled at your lack of common sense -- just like your nationals are probably doing on here, too. It's just a message board -- that happens to be quite well known by national officers of most of these groups.

Well thank you for telling me I won an award for not being all tacky as hell on the internet. I don't live in The South, I live in the Pacific Northwest, specifically Idaho. I personally wouldn't take the chance of messing with someone's letters because it is not that deep and I guess I'd rather just let someone have a $1.99 sticker they paid for than mess with someone else's property. I could make a generalization about how people from where you're from aren't raised right with good home training, but there are enough classy people from The South on GC to offset one person who can't respect other people's property, even if they feel ownership over letters someone is using that they have no idea about the meaning behind.

Tacky is as tacky does.

I honestly don't understand the issues with the outrage over wanna-bes. I mean if someone wants to perp Alpha Gam that just means we're the hotness and they're not and will never be. It isn't worth causing a scene or having criminal charges brought. I swear it is like that episode of "The Office" where Andy freaks out because Dwight is wearing Cornell stuff. Maybe I should start going off on people who wear Idaho gear if they can't prove their dates of attendance. Oh wait, I live in Idaho, if I messed with someone's property I'd get shot.

I can understand why you did what you did. If she wasnt a member then she shouldnt have had those letters. I probably would have done the same thing as an undergrad.

when we ordered our Homecoming letter shirts, we had an alum order one for her daughter! we do NOT have a legacy rule... so what happens when the child comes to college and doesn't get a bid?

There's this homeless-looking guy on my campus who is known to take anything/everything he can get his hands on.

He was once seen in a Phi Sigma Sigma Bid Day shirt.

(And I'm not talking about the GC Jamaican)

Did they know at the time she ordered it that's what she was going to do with it?? I would NOT have let her order it if she said that's what it was for. She should know better.

How old is her daughter?

If she's like...young, then no big deal to me. But high school or older and that's a little inappropriate.

I know this is really old... but a similar thing happened to me last year with a guy!! I was on a retreat (not a Greek one) at this place way out in the woods, and I saw a really hippie, earth-spirit kind of guy wearing a Lambda Chi Alpha shirt. He looked like he was in his mid twenties, so I assumed he had graduated recently. I ran up to him really excited and asked, "What chapter are you from? My cousin's a Lambda Chi Alpha!" He looked really disgusted and said, "I'm not a frat guy."

So naturally I asked why he was wearing a "frat guy" shirt... turns out he got it at Goodwill. Morals of the story: 1) Don't donate your old letters, because you don't know where they'll end up, and 2) Don't act so incredulous if you're wearing letters and someone thinks that you're *GASP* actually Greek!

Her daughter is probably 7 or 8. Maybe 9. We knew, but since she is an alum... we can't tell her no. My sisters told me that her daughter has a ton of letter shirts... I'm talking stitched letters.

Are you really worrying about something that may or may not happen 10 years from now? Is it really worth worrying about?

I understand the importance of only letting members wear letters, but it's something you can't control since she already has em. If she orders shirts with you guys next time, just tell her "we'll order one for you, but your daughter does not get one."

It's not that big of a deal.

It really isn't a big deal that she has them. I just wonder because we have already had problems with that in the past; girls who claim legacy and tell everyone that they already have a bid. We do not guarentee bids to anyone.

I think I posted this elsewhere on GC, but my 15 year old cousin came to Thanksgiving brunch wearing an AXO paintball shirt... I didn't get a chance to ask her where she got it, seeing as no one on either side of her family is an AXO...

Completely fake letters
 

This is a bit different but still makes me angry.

At my school a bunch of my friends in my major decided they would start their own sorority....but haven't made any effort to become recognized by the school or a council. I saw a picture of one of the girls wearing letters for this "sorority". I would try to tell this girl that you cant just pick three greek letters and wear them and be greek but I know it'd be futile.

Anyone else find this crazy?

I stopped at uf...

Okay so what about when org's give out t-shirts with their letters? A guy I was hanging out with wore an Alpha Phi shirt that was given out by them when they were colonizing, and I was given Delta Sigma Phi stuff by their national reps. I don't wear it anymore because the colonization is done, but still, how about those loopholes?

Crazy, yes. Worth laughing at, yes. Getting angry about, no.

National orgs do this? WHY???? I can see giving out "I <3 XYZ" buttons or something like that, but actual shirts? I say if the group was stupid enough to do that, wear them whenever.

Advertising, having the opposite sex wear XYZ letters can/is perceived to be PR.

The only time I care about someone wearing letters for a sorority or fraternity they're not in is when they are block letters. The shirts we have for socials or philanthropies are okay for people to wear in my opinion. I know my boyfriend that is a Delta Sig wears AOII shirts that I've bought for him because they were just shirts that we had made for formals. I also have some delta sig shirts too, but I don't wear them anymore since our panhellanic has told all the sororities to stop wearing rush shirts for the fraternities or I heart [insert fraternity letters here].

Someone mentioned in an earlier post that they would cut there letters out of there shirts before throwing them away. I don't think I could do that. All of my letter shirts are important to me, and they have memories attached to them. I'll probably take all of my letter shirts and turn them into a quilt one day.

So how do you think your sorority got started 100 years ago? A group of girls picked out three greek letters and decided to form a sorority. They didn't have a huge chapter house, were recognized by the school or council. I say more power to them. In 100 years they may have 200 chapters and be the sorority everyone wants to join. Don't be such a poop.

You make a good point except for the fact that:
1) not all of our GLOs were founded by "a group of women or men who picked out three Greek letters and decided to form a sorority or fraternity";
2) NCadpi is saying that these young ladies are trying to operate as a sorority (rather than a club or just group of friends) without attempting to take the proper steps to become formally recognized which can be a bad thing based on my experiences; and
3) founding GLOs should be somewhat different than it was 100+ years ago.

Your lack of knowledge of Greek history is showing.

Her sorority got started 160 years ago when a group of girls, with the approval of the college, decided to form a literary society, the name of which, while derived from Greek, did not include Greek letters. The group didn't "pick out three Greek letters" until over 50 years later, when they decided to go national.

I see what BadCat was trying to say despite the glitch.

We need to stop denying that all of our GLOs were founded by people who found some cool letters, cool colors, and said "I think we should make this happen!"

I see what he was trying to say, too. And there is some truth to it, but there's also some vast overgeneralization to it.

And some of us were founded without the letters. ;)

Hence my sarcasm. ;)

Sorry Sarcasm, I'll be with you as soon as I've a little more caffeine.

The awesomeness of MysticCat can't possibly be contingent upon caffeine. :( Say it ain't soooooooooooooooooooooooo....

:p

Exactly. I've exchanged event tshirts/screenprinted ones with a boyfriend, but not block letters. It is fine and normal. This type of thing just depends on campus culture really.

Am I the only person who sees no distinction from stiched block letters and just screen print? Sorry but I don't think most of our founders would care how the letters were formed.

I don't either, but different strokes for different folks ;)

I think the distinction people are drawing is between a shirt that would normally be seen as a sign that the person wearing it is a member of the GLO in question (which shirts with stiched, block letters almost always would) on one hand, and an event tee-shirt that simply indicates the wearer attended the event sponsored by the GLO on the other hand.

Right - like, I have an old (OLD) Kappa Delta Rock'n'Bowl shirt from VT where KS and APhi were teamed up - so it has our letters w/ APhi's on the front and the event logo (obv w/ KD) on the back. I don't think most places would tilt on me wearing the shirt - but even if it wasn't "personalized" to my letters (think if the LAX teams participated, for example), it still seems like something that would be fine to wear, if for no other reason than good publicity.

No. Why there is a difference to some people baffles me! They still represent the same thing and imo should only be worn by members.

The same as I wouldn't let someone wear my badge if it were made with gold plating instead of gold, I wouldn't let anyone but a sister wear my letters.

I think this must come down to campus culture. Because we were a campus that made a t-shirt for pretty much everything, it was a given that all dates for a fraternity or sorority party would be given a t-shirt. In addition, we all wore shirts promoting Derby Days, Phi Kap ManDays, joint Homecomings, Follies, etc. It also wasn't uncommon for people of the opposite sex to wear screened t-shirts as a PR and/or statement of support during rush. You came to campus in this culture, you witnessed it, and you didn't think anything of it.

However, every group on campus preached it that stitched letters were for members only. You NEVER saw anyone wear another groups stitched letters. To this day I can see a girl wearing a Phi Delt (example, only) party shirt, and I just simply think that she must have attended said party. In no way do I associate her with their entire organization.

I'm honestly confused by this. So if ABC and XYZ (both sororities) have an event together, they can't jointly make shirts with their letters on them to give out to both groups because the "other" group's letters are on it?

I think this must be a campus culture thing.