Upsilon?
 

Is it pronounced as UPsilon?
Or, OOPsilon?
Is it a english U?
Or, Y? :confused:

Im going to be nice and reply to this....

Its Oo-psilon, but Ive heard people say UP-silon, I know I did before I became Greek.

Its just like the letter Tau... Ive heard 3 different ways of saying it

Tow - as in a tow a truck

T-owe : as in owe I hurt myself

Tau: as in aww or saw

Oh yes! My skin just crawls when I someone says Zeta TOW AAAlpha or Sigma TOW Gamma or AAAlpha Phee Omega.

Here's the worse one:
Sigma Pi=E2 WTF???

It's Tau not Tow
It's Alpha is in ALL, not as in the name "AL"
It's Phi as in fight, not as in fee.
The sigma is not a "E"
The pi is not a "N" or "2".

A lot of the different ways you are saying the letters are due to area dialect, and also the way that the letters are pronounced in the true greek language.

Phi is pronounced Fie in English and Fee in Greek
Xi is pronounced Zi in English and Zee in Greek

I have never heard anyone pronounce Alpha other than as in the word AL.

I know at LTS this summer, we roomed with girls from the Xi chapter, they pronounced it Zee... but our grand archon, think national president, pronounced it Zi.

variations.

<3Ali

OH
PS,
as long as Im here... from what I know here are the english eqivalents (sp!!) of greek letters, if Im wrong, please correct me:
Alpha A
Beta B
Gamma G
Delta D
Epsilon E
Zeta Z
Eta H
Theta TH
Iota I
Kappa K
Lambda L
Mu M
Nu N
Xi X
Omicron O
Pi P
Rho R
Sigma S
Tau T
Upsilon U
Phi F or Ph
Chi C or CH?
Psi PS
Omega W?

JUST FOR YOUR INFO, curiouss is also sh80er so just ignore!

Thought I'd just clear this up -- We've always tried to get people to pronounce Yoop-si-lon. That is even how our International Headquarters says to pronounce it. I personally hate when people say Oop-si-lon. And Up-silon just doesn't sound right either. Yoop-silon.

Sorry I couldn't resist posting to this....

We ALWAYS get our name mis-pronounced!! Its either oop-silon or UP-silon...even though like BrianMUDU said, we prefer it to be yoop-silon.

Slightly-amusing story...
I started calling a couple of my Phi Mu friends Feeee Mu's until they started pronouncing Upsilon right. That got things cleared up REAL fast.

And then our first house rule for our new house is that any visitor has to pronounce the name of the fraternity correctly to get in! (Actually, that was supposed to be just a joke, but it WAS voted into the chapter by-laws the same night we banned capri pants at any DU function). :rolleyes:

well the problem with the whole "phi" thing is that alpha phi is correct in their pronunciation and so is alpha phi omega. alpha phi simply pronounces their's with a "fee" sound because it's the last letter of their chapter name. if phi occurs midsentence/midchapter title it would be pronounced "fie" and "fee" if it's at the end. some weird greek grammar rule.

marissa

Yoop-si-lon. Yoop-si-lon. Yoop-si-lon.

Tau is pronounced like paw.

And in Sigma Alpha Iota, the Iota is pronounced "ee-oh-ta".

Alpha Phi is pronounced Alpha Fee.

Mu is "Myew".

Actually, if you all want the REAL lowdown on authentic Greek pronunciation, here it is:

Alpha: pronounced al'fa with a long "a," like in "father"
Beta: pronounced vi'ta, as in "victory." Beta is not a "b," its a "v." Greek
doesn't have a "b" sound.
Gamma: pronounced "ya'ma," as in "yes." Again, there is no hard "g" in the
Greek language--gamma is equivalent to "y"
Delta: pronounced "thel'ta," as in "they." No hard "d" in Greek, its a "th"
sound.
Epsilon: epsilon is pronounced with the "e" as in "red."
Zeta: pronounced "zita," or "zee'ta." The "i" or "ee" is pronounced like
"eagle." Equivalent to "z" in English.
Eta: pronounced "ita," or "ee'ta." Again pronounced like the "e" in "eagle."
Most equivalent to "i" in English...but not really.
Theta: pronounced "thi'ta," or "thee'ta." Like delta, it is a soft "th" sound. The
"thi" or "thee" sound is pronounced like "theater" or "Theodore."
Iota: pronounced "io'ta," or--if you say it fast--"yo'ta." It serves as the
equivalent to the English "i."
Kappa: not pronounced like "cap-pa." Its more like "kazoo"--I'm not even
sure how to explain this one. But it is the equivalent of "K" in English.
Lambda: pronounced "lam'vtha." Its NOT "lamb" and "da." The "b" and the
"d" are not hard.

OK, I will finish this post at a later time, but I hope this is helping to settle the pronunciation thing once and for all. I'm going to test all of you on this stuff after the holidays! ;)

Wow. Education thread for me ... I've done the unthinkable for a while ... Tow instead of Tau !

Wow, thanks DU's. My chapter's local was Beta Chi Upsilon, and it certainly sounds more melodious pronounced "Yoop-silon" instead of "Upsilon." That's probably why they picked it. :)

We had a guest speaker (soror) at a reunion this semester and she referred to our chapter as "Pi Moo" about a thousand times. I guess she didn't notice our jaws dropping further everytime she said it! :rolleyes:

Banned capri pants? You'd have half the girls at this campus banned from your parties every spring!! Why'd y'all do that?

And, a funny story: This year at Tigerama (Clemson's Homecoming Pep Rally, the largest in the country, held in our stadium) the skits were being introduced before the skit competition. Chi O and Pika were paired together, and the announcers kept saying "Shee Omega and Pi Kappa Elfa". It was terrible - one announcer had been in a sorority at Clemson, so she got it right, but the other two were sports commentators who just botched it up all night long. Then they kept referring to Phi Delt as Sig Ep for reasons I will never understand. :rolleyes: Maybe they should spell things out phonetically for these people!

Oops...I should've clarified that one. We banned any of our brothers from wearing them, not girls. A very long and hilarious story.....:rolleyes:

Diva, imagine my surprise and resistance when I pledged the MOO Alpha Chapter of Alpha Phi Omega. Two years later, I have learned to say MOO within the chapter and MYOO externally. . .

I don't, know on my campus the ZTA's pronounce it like T-OWE, like owe your hurt. I know the phi mu's hated being called Fee moos though. I am also in Alpha Phi Omega, and we were the Mu Xi chapter, not pronounced moo zee, but i could never figure out why my friend from miami called them the Alpha feees....but I think all the pronounciations are funny, and from the post which said how the greeks actually pronounce it-well no wonder the ones in the GC chat rooms never want to talk to me, they must think all the GLO's are infiltrating their culture and pronouncing it all badly. why did we pick greek letters when this was all started anyway? why not latin?
anywho, let me know what your thoughts are!
tori

Actually, the reason Alpha Phi pronounces it "fee" not "fie" is because of this rule: if the Phi follows a vowel, which in our case would be Alpha, and there are no other letters after the Phi, it is pronounced "fee." :)

I always thought it was a UPsilon before i was greek........then a nice ZTA told me it was OOPsilon.....funnying thing was i thought they were making fun of DU when they were saying that

do you have a speech defect or something?
It is 'oop-' either see or suh--lon
It is not Yoops in either Greek or English. Duh
Think not too badly...there are Tekes who say
Tau like Cow...our founders would potty in their
graves.
Now about the word "Nationals." Never mind. Go out and
rush, do something, in the long haul it counts little, does it?

Do you have a tact defect or something?

People pronounce English words different just like people pronounce Greek letters different. "Yoop-silon" is what we prefer, so whether or not you say that is how it is pronounced, well... it doesn't matter. You can sit at home and pronounce it however you want.

Did you mean Theta Chi in that post?

1. Alfuh Fye
2. Fye Myew
3. Sy Oopsilon
4. Alfuh Fye Omayga
5. Zayta Taw Alfuh
6. Alfuh Omuhcron Pie
7. Lamduh Kye Alfuh
8. Sigmuh New
9. Thayta's Eye ;)

I pronounce them the same way SweetestDiva does except for one (obviously), Sy Yoopsilon.

oh, well, what the heck...
 

There is Theta Xi and Theta Chi. The Theta Xi (ZY, not ZEE)
outfit is kidded sometimes as "The Taxi"
Theta Chi is sometimes called "Circle Bar X"
ANYBODY, anywhere, who says moo obviously must be calling
the cows or suffers from brain damage. It is MEW...
Alpha is ALfa, not ALLfa 'cept in ancient Greek
Zeta is always Zayta; in old Greek, ZEETA
Iota is called E-ohta by the musical sorority, Sigma Alpha Iota,
but they generally are not up on the greek things LOL
Xi is ZEE as regards Alpha Xi Delta, but ZY in Theta Xi and the
distinguished scientific society, Sigma Xi
I have never heard Pi called Pee...it is Pie, simply Pie....
TAU rhymes with paw in all cases but in ancient Greek is to
rhyme with cow...but who speaks ancient Greek?
Upsilon is OOPseelon or OOPsilon, no matter where. You can
call it anything you want, but it is oopsilon anyway you cut it
Phi is generally called FY 'cept Alpha Phi which is Alpha FEE, but the SAEs all know what Phi Alpha is...LOL!
Omega is O-may-guh...ancient Greek, O-mee-guh.
Now go out and rush. Check out a copy of Baird's Manual, you
will learn many interesting things. And don't forget rush.

E C, I agree with you, where did all of these mispronowcings come from?:)

The Greek Cross TAU is TAW not T-OW!

there was a movie that did Delta T-ow Chi!

I thought Fee was something that the Giant said about Englishmen!:D

Oh by the way,another year shot to hell, think I will fix lobster tail, shrimp, and cobbed corn, with a little Cal. Grape Juce and strap my bu- tockis in the lay back chair!!!!!:)

I will be working tomarrow till about 1:00 Central Stupid Time so if bored you all can call me- 913-334-4567!

Have a safe and PROSPORISE NEW YEAR!:D

Upp-silon, Yoop-silon, Oop-silon...whatever,
time to move on. Get off your duffs and rush,
clean up a cemetery, build a vomitorium out
away from the house, there's lotsa other things
to do. But being Greek, whatever then name or
pronunciation, is great and for life!