Your letters, but scrambled.
 

I've only run into two cases that I can remember off the top of my head where two national greek organizations have the same letters but scrambled.

1) Kappa Sigma Fraternity and Sigma Kappa Sorority (not related as far as I can tell)
2) Alpha Phi Omega Serv. Fraternity and Omega Phi Alpha Serv. Sorority (OPA was founded with the help of APO brothers, but no legal tie)

Are there any other examples that people can thing of? I know this is something that Tri-Delta and Tri-Sigma don't have to deal with...

Heh, this thread reminds me of the time one of my sisters bought a Kappa Sigma decal for her little. They're backwards for the inside window of your car. Whoops.

I don't think this is exactly what you're looking for, but there's all the groups with just one letter different:

1. Phi Kappa Sigma / Kappa Sigma (this actually confused me for a while freshman year, and I walked into the Phi Kap house thinking it was the Kappa Sig house. Stupid freshmen)

2. Phi Kappa Psi / Phi Kappa Sigma

3. Pi Kappa Phi / Pi Beta Phi (even more confusing because on my campus, we refer to both groups as Pi Phi [I've heard a bunch of different stories as to why, but really not sure how that came about] which eventually lead to the fraternity being known as "Guy Phi")

4. Pi Kap / Phi Kap

5. Pi Kappa Phi / Pi Kappa Alpha

I'm sure there are some others. I think the conclusion we can draw is that the letters Pi, Kappa and Phi were very popular at some point.

ETA: Also, Chi Omega / Alpha Chi Omega

We had the same issue, as at my alma mater we also had both groups. We ended up calling Pi Kappa Phi either "Pi Kaps" or "Pi Phi's for Guys". I've never heard "Guy Phi" before! :)

Or Phi Sigma Kappa and Phi Kappa Sigma.

At my school we called Phi Sigma Kappa "Phi Sig". Thank God we didn't have Phi Sigma Sigma or that could've been confusing.

On my campus, there's Delta Phi and Delta Psi, also known as St. Elmo's and St. Anthony's (or St. E's and St. A's), with similar reputations and right next door to each other. They pretty much blended into one group in my mind.

My boyfriend and I were just debating this last weekend. He referred to them as the guy Pi Phis. I asked him if he was referring to Pi Kapps. He was convinced that that nickname was incorrect because according to him "no one uses the middle letter in the nickname". I guess him being a Phi Psi, and he knows many Pi Phis, I could see where he gets that. But then I reminded him of Gamma Phi, Alpha Chi, Alpha Gam, Alpha Sigs, Delta Sigs, Phi Delts, Lambda Chi...just to name a few... lol

Alpha Phi Delta and Alpha Delta Phi which are both fraternities.

Until GC, I had never heard of Pi Kappa Phi being referred to as Pi Phi - on my campus, they are the Pi Kaps.

Funny story - when I was a baby colony member, we decided to do posters for all the fraternities and the one other sorority on my campus for Valentines Day. I had been greek less than a month (we colonized on 1/15/04)...and honestly, I hadnt learned all the letters yet. I was on the committee to make "AXiD <3 (letters of org)" posters.

Imagine my horror when I got to the school to hang up the posters on the suite doors only to realize I had drawn Phi Kappa Pi. I was mortified....and ran to walmart to get supplies to make a correct poster.

On that same note - it took me forever to learn that a Gamma does not look like a 7.

We do at my alma mater. Phi Sigma Sigma was first so Phi Sigma Kappa is simply known as "Kappa". Come to think of it, people rarely ever use their whole name, but there chapter is so small compared to the others it's very easy to "forget" them altogeher. We used to have Phi Kappa Sigma, but from what I understand they simply went by Skulls. At one point we also had Kappa Sigma, but I don't know when they were on campus or if they ever were all on campus at the same time.

We have Pi Kappa Phi, "Pi Kapp" and Pi Kappa Alpha, "Pike".

Could be useful in Risk Management. If a brother or sister draws a Gamma as a 7 they've had enough to drink.

So far
 

So right now the list is
Kappa Sigma(NIC)/Sigma Kappa(NPC)
Alpha Phi Omega (Service)/Omega Phi Alpha(Service) (Historical tie)
Phi Kappa Sigma(NIC)/Phi Sigma Kappa (NIC)
Alpha Delta Phi (NIC)/Alpha Phi Delta (NIC)

isn't there Alpha Gamma Delta and Alpha Delta Gamma? Did I make that up?

Nope.

Add Alpha Gamma Delta (NPC)/Alpha Delta Gamma(NIC) to the list.

And also
Theta Phi Alpha(NPC)/Phi Theta Alpha(Honorary History)/Theta Alpha Phi(Honorary Theater)

At my alma mater, we had:

Phi Sigma Kappa and Phi Kappa Sigma
Kappa Sigma and Sigma Kappa

and a few groups with one-letter differences.

Things could, and did, get confusing. We had the occasional PNM going through NPC recruitment, who would accidentally say that she was preffing Kappa Sigma. :p

Gamma Phi Beta and Gamma Beta Phi.

I *heard* that at one point there was a local called Kappa Gamma who was using our symbols and colors, and KKG nationals had to ask them to cease and desist. I think they were somewhere in Connecticut. But I don't know if it's true :p

littleowl, search on SCSU and you'll find a couple of threads. (Enjoy! Or maybe not.)

How ominous...
Interesting. I'll have a look. Thanks, guys!

ETA: Dayuummm.
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2201648844
http://www.greekchat.com/gcforums/sh...ad.php?t=94051
http://www.greekchat.com/gcforums/sh...ad.php?t=96495

I know there are at least two smaller orgs who call themselves Ep Sigs.. and one of the two is Epsilon Phi Sigma... I want to say that they're not social, though.. and I remember there being a thread about Epsilon Sigma.

Also, when we do events on campus with the Alpha Sigs, we call it an Alpha Sigma Phi Epsilon event.

We do the same thing- we have a local Christian fraternity on our campus called Delta Alpha Chi. We always have DAX-O parties. :)

I've heard that pnms are confused sometimes with AGD and AXiD.

At WGa. in the old dorm, we were on the same side of the building. at least in a few weeks, each will have their own houses,.

Kappa Delta Chi and Kappa Delta Pi

We also had Pi Kappa Phi "Pi Kapp" and Pi Kappa Alpha "Pike". I forgot Kappa Sigma and Sigma Kappa, both are on my campus but no one ever had a problem differentiating.

I always got KAΨ and ΑΚΨ mixed up

Not really a scrambling but....

There's ΑΧΣ (professional chemistry frat) and AXE (a local social frat). During new member meetings for ΑΧΣ we always have to make sure everyone knows the difference between an Epsilon and a Sigma.

Not scrambled, but similar names.

Sigma Pi and Sigama Phi (Sig Pi and Sig Phi)
Psi Upsilon and Delta Upsilon (Psi U DU)

There's Sigma Alpha Epsilon & Epsilon Sigma Alpha.
Chi Psi and Psi Chi (Psychology honor society)

Oh yeah, and I was out with brothers for breakfast once and, of course, some of us were wearing letters. One of the waitresses comes up and asks, "You guys are SigEps, right? Sigma Alpha Epsilon? My boyfriend is one at Whatever University" And she points at someone's letters.

Also I've been asked is SAE is SPE's rival (Nationally) because our names are similar.

My alma mater has Pi Kappa Phi (Pi Kapp's), Pi Kappa Alpha (Pike's), Phi Kappa Sigma (Phi Sigs - or Phi Pools because they have a pool), Phi Kappa Psi (Phi Psi) and since I've graduated have added Phi Kappa Tau (Phi Tau's) and Phi Kappa Theta (PKT's). I realize they're not all the same, but it's a lot of really similar sounding names - and especially hard to learn when you're a freshman and it all sounds the same :)

My school has two local sororities. Sigma Psi Kappa and Kappa Psi Epsilon. Sigma Psi Kappa was originally going to be Sigma Psi Epsilon but didn't want to be confused with Kappa Psi Epsilon.

Phi Alpha is a national honor society for social work students.

You think that's bad?

I'm a founder of my AEPhi chapter. AEPi had been on campus for decades. I can't tell you how many times I was asked if I was a girlfriend of an AEPi, or if AEPi had gone coed, etc. You would think that at a top-rated engineering school like MIT, they would know that pi and phi are different letters. :rolleyes:

Just tell them that Pi is the one in the school cheer. :)

Randy

Delta Sigma Phi and Delta Sigma Pi always got me confused.
We also have Phi Kappa Sigma, Pi Kappa Alpha, Phi Kappa Psi on my campus and were getting Phi Kappa Phi this coming semester. Needless to say it will be confusing.

Ah and it was rumored (but very untrue) that a local sorority at my school, Chi Omega Rho, was actually a failed Chi Omega colony.

Ok, not exactly the same, but:

Gamma Phi Beta and Pi Beta Phi


Since the Greek letters "Pi" and "Gamma" look kind of similar, people get confused sometimes.

Example: the first couple of weeks of my pledge quarter, I would look at all the Greek merchandise websites and I'd always get tricked by some Pi Phi letters and look at them.
Also, I had a tote bag in college with my letters on it that I wore everywhere. I worked at one of the grad school offices on campus, and one day was stopped by a woman who asked if I was a Pi Phi because she saw my bag. She WAS a Pi Phi in college and still got confused by the letters.

Thank you. We're only known as Pi Kapps, not Pi Phi. There are no other nicknames.

There's Delta Chi and Chi Delta (local sorority in the California area?)