Usage question
 

In one of the AI threads, there was a brief discussion about AOII being the correct typewritten abbreviation for Alpha Omicron Pi.

Yet I see ADPi used all the time.

Any reason for the different grammatical choices?


Note: It's Friday and I'm bored. Bear with me.

I think i started the craziness about the II rather than Pi on the AI link - oops

Here is why we use two i's or the symbol for pi that you can find in most word fonts under symbols instead of "P i" - it is just our reasoning

"Alpha," "Omicron," and "Pi" are the Greek letters standing for our motto. Alpha Omicron Pi also has a shortened form of its name by which it is known: AOII. This is written in the form "AOII" using the Greek symbol "II" and not "Pi." To do otherwise would be grammatically incorrect in mixing styles of letters.

we use A because it is the symbol for Alpha not because it is the first letter
O because it is the symbol for Omicron
II because it is the symbol for Pi

i don't think i am explaining this very well - i apologize!!

I think as you said it is just a gramatical choice - i don't know if ADPi has a reasoning or stance on it..... my cousins are adpi's i'll ask?

Re: Usage question
 

I think it's because A looks like an Alpha exactly and O looks like an Omicron exactly, whereas D does NOT look like a Delta truly...as you know, Delta is a triangle.
So you aren't "mixing" languages and usages with with Alpha Omicron Pi's name, the way that you are with Alpha Delta Pi's name, I guess?

And to nhpgator, I think it was good of you to point out that it is AOII, rather than AOPi. I think if a woman can show that she knows what she is talking about, it is that much more impressive. It mildly bugs me when women talk about "alumni initiation". Well, until NPC groups start initiating men on a widespread basis, can we please use the correct term which is "alumnae initiation"?

Yes, I guess I am nitpicky, but when someone demonstrates to me that they have taken the time to get to "know their stuff", it makes me all the more willing to help and guide them with matters pertaining to AI.

For example, I find that some people say, "I don't understand the alum terminology issue..I find it so confusing"'...sorry, that's just lazy. How hard is it to remember the women usages always have an "a" at the ending or at least NEAR the ending? alumna and alumnae

I don't see an 'a' near the ending of alumnus nor alumni, therefore they are not the "women only" designations.

</off soapbox>

I think it's one of those things that people at HQ make up to drive us crazy, honestly. Like Tri Sig isn't ok but Tri Sigma is. Or the fact that Delta Delta Delta HQ HATES it when people use a hyphen in "Tri Delta" or "Tri Delt."

Re: Re: Usage question
 

Makes sense to me! That's the sort of explanation I was looking for :)

Thanks!

yep. plus ive always thought that AOII is more aesthetically pleasing then AOPi. for some reason, AOPi just feels like theres a block between the O and the Pi, where as AOII just flows. Yes i am crazy. haha.

I think that -

AOII are the actual Greek letters.

ADPi are not.

If there was a triangle symbol on the keyboard ADPi would probably use the "II" too.

This is probably why we are encouraged to use Alpha Sigs, Alpha Gams etc instead of ASA or AGD.

Yep, and in that same vein, I much prefer the "look" of AOII to AOTT which I have also seen on these boards.... oh well

It's interesting how the letter usage varies from group to group. Delta Gamma really embraces the DG thing as evidenced here:
http://www.anchortrader.com/pics/TIARA01.jpg
and here:
http://www.anchortrader.com/pics/wd002.jpg

Yes! When I see AOTT, it looks like KD's AOT, and then I get all confused.....

Yes at my chapter this year I had to explain to the members that AOII was okay but AOTT was not okay. Also, there was a tee shirt company who was selling shirts to the GLOs on campus. They put AOPi on the front. It was a cute shirt but AOII International does not want us mixing the letters. I had to have the tee shirt company change it to AOII. I also learned from reading the adviser manual for AOII, that AOII likes adivsers to spell it, adviser, with an E and not an O. I don't think any AOII chapter will get fined or anything, just something they like up in Brentwood, TN.

We NEVER used "Alpha Sig" - we were ALWAYS "ASAs".

Maybe because there was an Alpha Sigma Phi fraternity at our school who were known as Alpha Sigs.

I don't know if that applies to other chapters or not.

We tried Alpha Sigs, it worked OK cause AST went by Taus & we didn't have Alpha Sigma Phi. But half the time it was ASAs and ASTs anyway. I know that some of the chapters in the midwest are "Alphas" but I think unless you have been that forever, there's too much danger of getting mixed up w/ the 8 zillion other things that start with Alpha. ETA (after reading Geeky Penguin's post) I am not sure how much Alpha Phi Alpha would like it. :)

We had girl Phi Sigs (Phi Sigma Sigma) and boy Phi Sigs (Phi Sigma Kappa) and just to make it interesting, a local fraternity named Phi Sigma. There was MUCH fighting over which fraternity was "The Real Phi Sigs."

Delta Sigma Pi also has a certain way to abbreviate their name.

The abbreviation is "Deltasig" ( one word, captial D, lowercase s )

We do this because the fraternity Delta Sigma Phi uses Delta Sig ( two words, capital D, capital S) :)

*edited b/c I don't know how to spell :p

Delta Sigma Pi at this campus calls themselves the Deltas, which I could see causing a hot mess with DST.

So glad to be a ZTA! The greek letters and English letters match up either way. ;)

Wow, that's cool.. I've never heard of it that way!

"Deltasig" is the way our Central Office prefers us to abbrivate it (almost like the way Tri Delta's office doesn't like it to be hyphenated)

I also just realized when I first posted, I wrote the "appreciation" instead of "abbreviation" when I was explaining the Deltasig stuff. I'm such a dork!!! I'm majoring in business.. not English :p j/k

Our internationals came down on the last convention and said that they didn't want us to call ourselves "DO"s anymore.

We are only supposed to refer to ourselves as Delta Omicrons.

Omicrons? :rolleyes: wtf?

Not to mention almost ALL of our songs have "DO" in it.

Yeah, nobody really listened to that.

33-- you hit it right on the nose--- we don't want to mix the letters. So you can do it all in greek letters ADP or in all English letters ADPi. Some also use A-Dee-Pi to spell out our letters in English.

Or you can just call us "A-Triangle-Pi" (wink)

I don't think its necessarily laziness...but rather ignorance.

For anyone who's taken a foreign language like Spanish or Italian & i'm assuming French too, all the adjectives for feminine nouns usually end with an a too... ie una chica buena is 'a good girl' and un chico bueno is 'a good boy'

Its a language rule in many of the romance languages. Isn't that right? corect me if i'm wrong

hehehe! ;)

You're right. Another way I learned it is that the men always stare at the ladies knees-- women=Alum-KNEE (alumnae)

From the looks of it, AOPi's use of the two capital I's to represent the capital Pi is a holdover from the old typewriter days; I have seen older documents from Pi Kappa Alpha that used II K A.

Alpha Sigma Phi has used 'Alpha Sig' though some chapters use 'Sigs' if there are no other fraternities with letters beginning in Sigma. Sometimes the initials are abbreviated "A S P" or "A S F", but that is rare.

Yup, the francais does it as well.

German has it as well: a male Canadian is kanadien and a female Canadian is a kanadierin.

Russian does it too, a married couple will be Mr. Federov and Mr. Federova. (the "a" on the end feminizes her surname, hence Anna Kournikova)

Mostly.

In Latin, the most common feminine ending is the letter a. The plural ending is ae. The most common masculine ending is us. The plural ending is i. A mixed male-and-female group gets the masculine ending. (All of this is nominative case, for you linguistic types.)

Most Romance languages have inherited similar endings. In French, though, the feminine is usually denoted with the letter e, rather than a. (Those crazy French :p)

Several years ago a girl came to work at my office and we started talking about our sorority affiliations. She was furious because I called myself a Zeta. Huh? She said that her group was the original Zetas and she didn't understand why we "stole" that just like everything else had been stolen from them. WTF?

I very politely told her that since ZTA had been around for almost 100 years (at that time), we probably weren't going to change how we referred to ourselves. She was not real happy to hear that. I guess there wasn't a ZTA chapter on their campus and her group was the "Zetas" there? On my campus, they called themselves ZPhiB so that is how I've always referred to them, too.

Every other Zeta Phi Beta I've met has been super nice so her rant really took me by surprise.

On our campus Pi Kappa Phi goes by Pi Phi rather than Pi Kap (probably because we also have a Phi Kap(pa Sigma) and it would get confusing). Of course, then when we colonized it got doubly confusing. So there is "girl Pi Phi" and "guy Pi Phi"

This story is a shame......there are 24 Greek letters and hundreds of Greek Lettered Organizations. It's a shame that one person couldn't understand that there can be one nickname for two different orgs.....sheesh. I certainly wouldn't trip if an NIC fraternity called themselves the Alphas.....it's a coincidence, not like they are stealing our symbols and colors.

FYI, I've always known them as "The Zetas" primarily, "ZPhiB" second.

Not necessarily true with French, but you asked. =) French feminine adjectives tend to end in "e". As for the AOPi versus AOII, when representing the greek letters it is preferred to write them as AOII and not AOTT, but contrary to popular belief AOPi can be used if dashes are placed in between the A-O-Pi <--like that. I learned this a while ago from a consultant.