Today I called Ujaama (the BEST place to get Greek nalia if you're in Tallahassee) to see if my pullover hoodie was finished. They pronounced it Theta Nu Zee instead of Xi.

Heh, when I was living in Ireland, a lot of people thought my letters were T A (the delta as an "A"), which stands for Territorial Army! Which, in Northern Ireland, isn't so great. Didn't help that they were blue and white *hand forehead*. Ahh adventures in cultural misunderstandings.

It's basic Greek grammer, Xi is pronounced Zee only when it is after a vowel sounding letter. Like Alpha Xi (Zee) Delta, in your case for chapter it would be pronounced Xi (long I sound). Same concept with Phi (long I sound) but when it comes to Alpha Phi ( its pronounced fee)

Not an urban legend. It acutually is Greek grammer. Zee for when it comes after a vowel like Alpha Xi and Zi for when its by itself like in Theta Xi, Theta Nu Xi, etc.


Same for Phi. Fee like in Alpha Phi (which is pronounced Fee) or fi like in Pi Kappa Phi and Phi Mu.

Don't believe me, look up Greek (the language) grammer.

I was just on their site and they have Theta Nu Zi listed as Omicron Nu Epsilion.

ps- I disagree with them being the best Greek Shop in Tallahassee. lol.

Well, my organization is Upsilon Delta Epsilon, and every calls us ude. as in like ooooooood. we started saying it to each other, and now other organizations have picked it up, and even people we don't know say ohhh that's an ude! lol. we love it.

lol that Omicron Nu Epsilon is lame. I was talking about the work that Tracy does-those are some phenomenal and extremely intricate line jackets.

I'm getting used to hearing Gamma Sig all the time... but before I'd joined up, back when a good friend of mine was pledging Theta Omega Phi, he called Gamma Sigma Sigma "Gamma Pig" rather often. (Jerk.)

my mother, who is one of those people who NEVER gets names right (she calls Snickers candy bars Sniggles lol) asked me why i pledged and what was so great about those Zappa Kappas...

hear the crickets chirping? i just stared at her for a moment and corrected her. it didnt stick. she still calls Zeta Phi Beta the Zappa Kappas...

It is definitely a Greek urban legend and it has nothing to do with Greek grammar. The name of a letter in Greek does not change depending on what letter-name comes before it. And more to the point, the name of the letter X is never pronounced "zee" or "zi" in Greek. The name of the letter X is spelled Xi in Greek and is pronounced "ksee," with both the "k" and the "s" being pronounced. Always.

X in Greek represents the "ks" sound that in English is represented by the letter "X." But in English, we don't begin words with that particular consonant combination, so in words derived from Greek that begin with a "X" -- Xi, xylophone, Xerxes -- we substitute the "z" sound for the initial "ks." So, "zee" is the anglicized name of X.

The name of the letter X has been further anglicized (or americanized) by shifting the "i" sound from "ee" to "i" ("eye"). The iota in Xi is pronounced "ee" in Greek. (The Greek pronunciation of Iota is "ee-ota" or "yota.") But in English, we often pronounce an "I" used in this way with what we call a long "I" sound (as you recongized by using "zi"), so "zee" become "zi."

By the same token, the names of the other Greek letters ending in i are pronounced similarly in Greek: P = "pee," F = "fee," C = "chee" (with the "ch" being pronounced similarly to the "ch" in "loch"), and Y = "psee" (with both the "p" and the "s" being pronounced, much like the "ks" in Xi).

Whether a particular GLO chooses to use "zi" or "zee" or "fi" or "fee" has nothing to do with imagined rules of Greek grammar and everything to do with that GLO's preference. Most GLOs used anglicized pronunciations of the names of Greek letters such as F. Some, like Alpha Phi, prefer to use the Greek pronunciation of F. And when there is more than one anglicized pronunciation of the name of a Greek letter such as X, some, like Alpha Xi Delta, have chosen to use the anglicized pronunciation that comes closest to the Greek pronunciation.

But it has nothing to do with whether the X or the F follows a vowel.

LMAO. Aww that's cute.

Phi Sig Kap is generally the most annoying one. It might be more understandable if Phi Sigma Sigma or another Phi Sigma ------ was on our campus but there aren't.

On a lighter note, I called the American Cancer Society yesterday to get my chapter squared away with the Relay-for-Life that's coming up and I told the woman on the phone that I am a member of Phi Sigma Kappa and I heard her say, "Oh, you're a Phi Sig, you're talking to an old Tri-Sigma girl." It's good to hear some random person get you're name right every once in a while, even if they are greek.

That was worse when we had both Phi Sigma Kappa and Phi Sigma Epsilon (before the merge)

We had Phi Sigma Kappa and Phi Sigma Sigma on our campus, so it was PhiSig for Phi Sigma Sigma and PhiKap for Phi Sigma Kappa.

Oh, and my dad is a Phi Tau Saluki.:)

at my school, Phi Sigma Kappa is called "Kappa". Phi Sigma Sigma was the first sorority on campus long before they arrived, plus we have Pi Kappa Phi "Pi Kapp", so "Phi Kapp" would be confusing. Thankfully, we don't have Kappa Kappa Gamma...