Symbol "Quirks"
 

Inspired by the Theta kite thread....

Elephants trunks up....
Crescents waxing or waning...
Angles of arrows...


What are some "rules" or details about your symbols that others may not know?

ASA crowns are 4-Point crowns, due to the number 4 being special to ASA...however our badges and etc seem to only have 3 points. This is because the 4th point is directly behind the middle point, which you wouldn't be able to see looking straight on.

Alpha Xi Deltas Quill is to placed at an angle as if writing with it.


The way I learn to place my Quill was to place my right thumb were the collar bone meets spread my fingers out about an inch apart and place the Quill in between the middle finger and ring finger.

Our crescent should always be a waxing crescent. I cannot tell you how INSANE it drives me to see so much Gamma Phi merchandise with a waning crescent. I will not buy anything with the crescent facing the "wrong" way.

Sigma Chi badge - the badge is worn angled with the top of the cross toward the left shoulder. Do you know how many times I've heard, "You're badge is on crooked"?

TKE's badge is also worn at an angle. I've gotten the "your pin is crooked" from people as well.

The Alpha badge isn't supposed to be worn crooked but DAMMIT WHY IS THE PIN THNGY ON AN ANGLE??? It's impossible to wear correctly!

#jewelryhazing

The Alpha Chi lyre is THREE STRINGED. Three. Not five, not four, three. Drives me bananas when it has the wrong number of strings.

Minor quibble, relatively speaking - but our colors are lavender and maroon - and that means we get a lot of hot pinks and purples thrown in to the mix. And they're fine as an accent color, but what's so wrong with lavender and maroon?

I'm just saying.

I also get irritated when people refer to us in writing as EK. Sigma and Epsilon are two totally different letters.

I cringe every time I see a backwards key associated with Kappa. It should be just like our badge- handle on the left, teeth to the right. The direction isn't official, but it might as well be considering that every single official Kappa item has the key pointing in only one direction.

I'm also picky about how my fleurs de lis look, but that's more of a style preference than being wrong.

The Theta kite can fly whichever way that the wind is blowing, but our pansy is only of the black and gold variety.

Interesting and informative thread. Thanks.

YES! My mom still gets excited, years later, when she finds a lyre with 3 strings for me if she's out somewhere.

Which makes me wonder -- how many GLOs use specific shades of a particular color? We just say our colors are red, black and gold and I've seen various shades of red in particular use (and appropriately so), but if you follow the guides from our visual identity manual, it should specifically be red, black and gold.

That's not a Sigma Kappa quirk, though. That's other people being stoopid. :D

FWIW, the key facing the wrong way drives me up a wall, too!

It's allowed, but using an African Violet instead of a standard wild violet makes me crazy, but I think it's because I have two brown thumbs, and it's almost impossible to kill a wild violet!

BTW - in most parlances, an elephant with its trunk up is lucky, trunk down is very unlucky.

ASA is officially Crimson and Pearl White, with Palm Green and Gold as secondary colors.

Azure blue has as many definitions. It's sky blue, people! Clear as an azure sky! It's closer to aqua than powder blue - unless you have nasty looking skies!

AOII is Cardinal Red.

I don't know if this is a symbol quirk, but I get annoyed by people who try and create shields/coat of arms for us. AOII doesn't have one- yet I occasionally see AOII merchandise with a fake shield thing on it.

LOL. And what do they look like?

KD's colors are olive green and pearl white, not just white and green. I know some chapters use ladybugs for a symbol. It isn't official and I can only guess that they do not want to use the Katydid (I don't blame them). However, we also have the teddy bear as a mascot. It is hard to mess us our symbols with them being a dagger and a nautilus shell.

http://i52.tinypic.com/20fyf50.png

Its the same with our badge.

Also, Delta Chi has red and buff (a tanned shade of yellow) which we share with AGD.

Well not sure if this is a quirk or what...but if you look at the back of an AOII badge you can spell out the letters LOVE. The LOVE is seen through the way our letters are superimposed (stacked) on each other. Hard to explain but I could totally show someone in person.

In response to shields...I have seen a shield with AOII on it, a shield with a rose on it....the best is when a Panhellenic Website tries to create one. Just use the rose, we are fine with just the rose!

http://www.fratpin.com/Scans/3-11-08...0Pi_2_back.JPG

Help me out here!

Phi Mu's quatrefoil is NOT square; it's a little bit wider than it is tall. Also, it's always a barbed quatrefoil (with the points), as opposed to just four humps. Some of the newer items in our store (Carnation Collection online) are just normal quatrefoils, not barbed, and I've complained several times about that fact. Some other items also have the quatrefoil cockeyed, at least in our official eyes, where the humps are at the north, south, east, and west positions... not a fan of that, either. Even our National Convention logo from last summer used a cockeyed quatrefoil. :-P

Our colors are Rose and White, not pink and white. Our Executive Office has, as of late, been using more of a hot pink or magenta, but I loathe that color. Absolutely hate it.

And this is just a personal preference, but when I use a lion to symbolize Phi Mu, I only try to use real or classy looking lions, not cartoony ones. I think of cartoons as silly, fake, and jokes, and that's not how I like to view my sisterhood.

How about your colors being red, buff, and green? Because "buff" is 99% of the time yellow. Which is fine (it's bright and happy, I'm down) but we had such a hard time with new members that didn't understand what BUFF was. Because all they see is red, yellow, and green.

I get the L -part of the Pi, O - the Omicron, and the V - in the middle of the O. I don't see the E.

Yes! I know the feeling! And for what its worth, the Gamma Phi crescent helped me pass astronomy...if I couldn't remember the difference between waxing and waning I just thought of our symbol!

lowercase e- sort of the "o". It's easy to show someone in person. We used to take off our badges and show it to rushees during preference.

Okay, I can see that. That's pretty cool- and a great parlor trick during Pref!

Or you can put the clasp down and it makes and "E." I don't think this was planned at all mind you. Just a coincidence. We always did it at pref round too. The PNMs always liked it. (Really great to do if your PNM seems uninterested.)

I'm exactly the same way when it comes to my crescents. My friends get very annoyed when I see crescent stuff and I say, "I'd buy it, but the moon is facing the 'wrong' way!" :p

Try explaining brown and mode...I'm still not exactly sure how to explain 'mode' to others!

ETA: Sorry for the double post!

Sigma Chi specifically says "old gold" for our blue and gold. I have seen all different shades of blue, including light, royal, and navy.

I have to admit I always chuckle when I see Beta Theta Pi's colors described as "delicate shades of pink and blue".:D

Can we go on a tangent about crests?

Real ASA crest:

http://mugreeklife.webs.com/asa_crest.gif

As you can see, there are 4 little hickydoos (I don't know what else to call them) at the top of the crest and under the Phoenix. As AF mentioned, the number 4 is special to us, so it fits.

Lazy ass commercially produced crest:

http://www.onegreekstore.com/media/c...2d/a/s/asa.jpg

Not only does it have 6 hickydoos instead of 4, it has an eagle instead of a phoenix on the crest. An eagle with its butt on fire does not a phoenix make.

Thanks for choking me with the twizzler I was eating.

I can honestly say that I've never heard of this before! This obviously skipped right over my chapter and Theta Beta. How cute!


Another quirky thing...unlike other GLOs, our badge, the letters superimposed cannot be placed on ANYTHING except our badge and membership certificate. Not on our houses, sweatshirts, memorabilia from convention, etc. Nothing.

Short answer - Beige. :D

We were told that "mode" is the same color with a lighter tonal value of any other color. I have no idea if that is true or not! LOL So blue and lighter version of the same hue would be blue and mode. :-P

It's called a wreath or sometimes tortilly. :p

I think I prefer hickydoos :p

I love our red, buff, and green. I really like the way the colors look together, as they do on the old handlettered charters. The red, yellow, and green combo is also pretty, but IMHO it looks so brassy compared to the true colors.