Letters Question
 

OK, I'm curious. We've seen a lot of posts on rules related to wearing letters - e.g., not on a TV show, not while drinking, etc. It's not exactly hard to get shirts with letters - in fact, they sometimes show up at the local Goodwill. What prevents a group of unaffiliated people from wearing 'XYZ' letters and doing whatever they want, on TV or otherwise?

We have no national policy that I'm aware of -- except for sponsoring things with organizations that derive more than half their profit from the sales of booze (things like that). We do also have a bylaw that forbids drinking in letters.

Apparently someone from a sorority here donated their Bid Day T-shirt to charity and it got picked up by a homeless guy. He was saying, "Hey look, I'm an [XYZ]!" It sounded like the other sisters were not amused.

Our chapter gets the stuff back. Like, if a sister is initiated and then quits, or is a pledge and depledges..then we ask for their stuff back. It keeps them from throwing it away, or giving it away, or whatever.

Girls are supposed to give their stuff back if they dropout, but that never happens. People just aren't willing to give back things that they paid for.

We cannot drink in letters, and I could go on and on about things that should not be done that are not written down. You are representing your organization at all times, wearing letters or not. While wearing letters, all behavior should be its best, if you want to keep your organizations reputation respectible.

I always see greek shirts at thrift stores. I would never donate anything with letters on it, and don't understand why anyone would, it's just asking for trouble.

It's too bad that letters can get into the wrong hands, and there is nothing to really stop it.

Realistically, it's not exactly hard to get letters - you can order them online, have them made at a campustown store, etc. There's been some discussion about women wearing their letters on TV, and I thought, "Heck, MTV could bring in random women off the street and give them [XYZ] letters to wear in their 'reality' TV show. Viewers wouldn't be able to tell the difference."

The local Greek shop by GMU had a special deal this Spring for a week and some group of people decided to take advantage of it and order a bunch of Pi Omicron Tau (POT) shirts and then wear them for one day. Way to go--spending $15 to look like an ass.

Why would you want to???:rolleyes: :confused:

How bland and boring would your life have to be that you'd go to a Greek store or spend money online just to be a perp? Like Corsulian said, why would you spend $15 (or even $5) to look like a jerk and possibly offend people?

Oh, and MTV isn't stupid. They've done shady things, and they edit their reality shows like crazy, but they certainly aren't going to take part in an outright deception. It isn't worth the headache.

Or the legal risks of copyright infringement. Unlike the random loser who just decides to have a jersey made with letters he's not entitled to wear, MTV's pockets are too big to invite a lawsuit.

Well how does TV work with the letters? I have watched The Price is Right for forever and a day. I have watched on many occasions a big group of sororities/fraternities on the show and of course every single person in the group is wearing a shirt with their letters (usually the same shirt). Heck, one of our sisters, wearing her letters, actually made it to the stage as a contestant and won some prizes.

Does it just depend on the show? I mean, I personally don't see The Price is Right as a show that is deragatory (sp) to our letters. I mean it's a game show (which I find fun to watch and either yell out the prices or yell at the contestants for chosing the wrong "thing" in their "game").

As for MTV, as much as Sorority Life was addictive (yes, I admit I watched the first two seasons), the editors were really good at blocking out letters that had nothing to do with the sorority they were "following".