Upsilon?

[curiouss]

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

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

[curiouss]

Originally posted by BrownEyedGirl
Here at Clemson we have a phrase for how to say "Tau". We say it's Tau like Paw, not Tau like Cow. So it's Zeta "Taw" Alpha!

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".

[AngelPhiSig]

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?

[Tom Earp]

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

[BrianMUDU]

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.

[antidrama]

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).

[squirrely girl]

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

[dzsaigirl]

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".

[greeklawgirl]

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!

[UofIL AXO]

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

[33girl]

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.

[SweetestDiva]

Originally posted by dzsaigirl
Mu is "Myew".

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!

[BrownEyedGirl]

Originally posted by antidrama
(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).

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. Maybe they should spell things out phonetically for these people!

[antidrama]

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