Why is the phi in alpha phi pronounced fee and not fye
 

anyone know?

I'm sure the Alpha Phis know.

b/c it sounds funny as fye?


;)

Actually, I was told that it was the proper pronunciation of Phi following a vowel, but I've heard something else too. I think there's another thread about it on here somewhere.

because thats how they want it?

this is what I've always heard too. Same with the letter Xi. Alpha *Zee* Delta, but for example, two chapters near here are Delta Xi and Zeta Xi and the Xi is pronouced *zye* for both of those.

I'd be interested to know how the girls in the local Zeta Xi Delta pronounce their Xi...

Paging MysticCat!

The ADPi New Member Handbook has both the Greek and the English pronunciation of each of the Greek letters. The Alpha Phis use the Greek Phi, not the English one.

That, or their founder was this really, really tall giant, who owned a castle at the top of a hugely tall beanstalk. When a bad little kid named Jack climbed the beanstalk, sneaked into the castle, and stole the giant's gold (which was called "Alpha" in his kingdom), the giant suddenly woke up and yelled, "FEE, Fie, Fo, Fum! I smell the blood of an Englishman!" Jack got scared and tried to run, but he dropped the Alpha just as the giant was starting his "Fee, Fie, Fo, Fum!" bit again. The giant liked the sound of his money being saved "Alpha" next to his "Fee" and he became the sound mixer for this fantastic group of women, whom he called the Alpha Fees.

This is what I was told during college.

It really has nothing to do with that. Honeychile sums it up best.

I know this sounds really weird, but in geology, we use a lot of greek letters (as in all sciences) well... the greek letter phi is used as a measure of grain size (like medium sand is a 2 phi grain and a fine sand is a 4 phi... it has to do with the diameter of the grain, but I digress) anyway, we pronounce it "fee" in geology. Though I think it's because saying "fye size" doesn't roll off the tongue as well as "fee size"

You called? Just when I was headed to bed, too, so I'll stick to the short explanation.

Which is, basically, rufio and honeychile are right. It has nothing to do with coming after a vowel, (or technically, after the name of a vowel) -- that's a Greek Urban legend. The name of F is spelled Fi in Greek, and the Iota, like "i" in most European languages other than English, represents an "ee" sound, not an "eye" sound. So, "FEE" is the Greek pronunciation. Always. "FYE" is an anglicized, mainly American, pronunciation. The Alpha Phis chose to use the Greek pronunciations, while most of the rest of us use anglicized pronunciations.

And in case anyone is wondering, the correct pronuncitions of the names of the letters X, P, C and Y are "KSEE" (pronoucing both the K and the S), "PEE," "CHEE" (with the "ch" like in Scottish "loch") and "PSEE" (pronouncing both the P and the S).

Now, that really was short for me. ;)

/hijack
Yay, another female geologist! ;)
/end hijack

See, I knew about I(ee)ota, but I didn't know about X, P, C and Y. So, it's really, Chee Omega. And Kappa Kappa Ksee. And Phee Sigma Pee. You know a friend of mine told me that P but I thought he was just making a joke cuz he's a little anti greek.