Starting A Sorority

[33girl]

Originally Posted by blueangel

I suppose I will have to spoon feed this to you. From the NATIONAL WEBSITE archives:

Zeta Tau Alpha is known as a fraternity, not as a sorority. The Founders intended Zeta Tau Alpha be designated a "fraternity" to distinguish the organization from the sisterhoods organized in connection with men's fraternities, called "sororities."

http://web.archive.org/web/200304210...a.org/trad.htm

Why didn't you just post that to begin with instead of a bunch of random collegiate chapter sites?

And again, WHAT SORORITIES DOES IT REFER TO??? Do they still exist? Were they little sister groups? Are they sororities that died out? What?

Regurgitating does very little to make you look like you know what you're talking about.

Not to mention that is from the ARCHIVED web page. This is the current page on the national website discussing ZTA's history which mentions nothing about "sisterhoods organized in connection with mens' fraternities" or ZTA's desire to differentiate itself from them.

http://www.zetataualpha.org/default....t&ContentId=41

[blueangel]

Originally Posted by 33girl

Why didn't you just post that to begin with instead of a bunch of random collegiate chapter sites?

And again, WHAT SORORITIES DOES IT REFER TO??? Do they still exist? Were they little sister groups? Are they sororities that died out? What?

Regurgitating does very little to make you look like you know what you're talking about.

LOL! Hurts to be proven wrong, doesn't it???

Crow.. yum, yum!

[kddani]

Originally Posted by blueangel

LOL! Hurts to be proven wrong, doesn't it???

Crow.. yum, yum!

Why are you incapable of having a normal conversation about a topic without entering into personal attacks and name caling?

[33girl]

Originally Posted by kddani

Why are you incapable of having a normal conversation about a topic without entering into personal attacks and name caling?

I'm just a little grossed out that she's getting so into this whole eating crow thing.

[DolphinChicaDDD]

Originally Posted by 33girl

I'm just a little grossed out that she's getting so into this whole eating crow thing.

Every time I see crow in this thread, I keep thinking of the AXP at my college. I don't understand the reference to eating crows either.

[Drolefille]

Originally Posted by DolphinChicaDDD

Every time I see crow in this thread, I keep thinking of the AXP at my college. I don't understand the reference to eating crows either.

Eat Crow
Recipes for eating Crow

The whole thing seems a bit odd, though perhaps the phrase was removed from national's webpage to avoid insulting sororities in general and those at Farmville in particular?

[tunatartare]

Originally Posted by Drolefille

Eat Crow
Recipes for eating Crow

The whole thing seems a bit odd, though perhaps the phrase was removed from national's webpage to avoid insulting sororities in general and those at Farmville in particular?

So I was trying to figure out what the whole "eat crow" thing has to do with anything, then I realized that I'd have to view posts that are on ignore to catch it.

[blueangel]

Originally Posted by 33girl

I'm just a little grossed out that she's getting so into this whole eating crow thing.

I'm getting a little grossed out that you can't admit you were wrong!

[blueangel]

Originally Posted by kddani

Why are you incapable of having a normal conversation about a topic without entering into personal attacks and name caling?

Oops! I do believe you meant that to 33rd girl who first posted to me:

Originally Posted by 33girl

Sorry, but I call bullshit on this one, unless a competent ZTA can explain it a little better.

But then, that's you and your little group's method-- attack first and then accuse me of starting the trainwreck. So transparent.

And.. the other tactic-- when your pals are proven wrong, divert the conversation!

[_Lisa_]

Since when is asking for more, detailed, information about a particular subject accusing someone of being wrong?

Originally Posted by blueangel

But then, that's you and your little group's method

Like I've said in the past, just because everyone been able to arrive at the conclusion that you're a complete moron who doesn't know her ass from her head, doesn't mean that we're a group.

[blueangel]

Originally Posted by _Lisa_

Since when is asking for more, detailed information about a particular subject accusing someone of being wrong?





Like I've said in the past, just because everyone been able to arrive at the conclusion that you're a complete moron who doesn't know her ass from her head, doesn't mean that we're a group.

Ah.. yet another member of the Cult has swooped down to try to aid her fallen comrade.

[MysticCat]

Originally Posted by blueangel

"Zeta Tau Alpha is known as a fraternity, not as a sorority. The Founders intended Zeta Tau Alpha be designated a 'fraternity' to distinguish the organization from the sisterhoods organized in connection with men's fraternities, called 'sororities.'"

http://web.archive.org/web/200304210...a.org/trad.htm

Originally Posted by 33girl

And again, WHAT SORORITIES DOES IT REFER TO??? Do they still exist? Were they little sister groups? Are they sororities that died out? What?

Yes, the reference would appear to be to what would later be called little sister groups, not to what we would call sororities today, and certainly not to any current or former NPC members orgs.

I believe that I have seen references to little sister orgs being called "sororities" in the days before that term came to refer exclusively to women's "fraternities." While we all know that Gamma Phi Beta was the first org to use the term "sorority" rather than "fraternity" or "fraternity for women," it must be remembered that sororitas (sisterhood) is pure Latin that would have been known to almost any fraternity man in the mid-1880s, Latin and Greek being core elements of a classical education. (Some etymologies I have looked at show the earliest use in English of the word "sorority" to have been circa 1530. Wish I had an OED handy.)

In the mid- to late-1800s, some fraternities had fairly organized "sororities," if you will, "of little sisters." I know that fraternities at Hampden-Sydney, located in the same Virginia county as Farmville, did. (My great-grandmother and her sisters were part of that group -- she wore my great-grandfather's Pike badge, which I now have. I also have an old Pike history with pictures of that chapter from the 1880s -- those pictures show the "little sisters" together with the brothers, my great-grands included.)

I would not be surprised that the founders of ZTA were familiar with the practice and terminology at Hampden-Sydney and chose to distinguish themselves from it. At the same time, the founders of KD, Tri-Sigma and ASA may not have felt the same need.

Perhaps ZTA removed the quote above from its national website to avoid risk of the very confusion seen in this thread.

[Drolefille]

Originally Posted by MysticCat

Perhaps ZTA removed the quote above from its national website to avoid risk of the very confusion seen in this thread.

That was my thought too. But if KD was there first, why avoid the term?

[MysticCat]

Originally Posted by Drolefille

But if KD was there first, why avoid the term?

You never know. Perhaps the founders of ZTA thought the founders of KD should have avoided the term.

Perhaps some of the founders of ZTA had a personal connection with little sister groups at Hampden-Sydney or elsewhere that the KD founders didn't have. (The Zeta website says that while the new group was considering what to adopt as a name, "the group received valuable assistance from two of the members’ brothers -- Maud’s brother, Plummer Jones, and Frances Yancey Smith’s brother Giles Mebane Smith. Both were students at the college of William and Mary, members of men’s Greek-letter organizations and knowledgeable of Greek lore." Perhaps they advised against using the term "sorority" because of how that term was used at W&M.)

I don't know the ages of the founders of KD at the time of founding, but the founders of ZTA of were 14-15. Perhaps they felt a stronger desire to avoid any suggestion of being "little sisters."

All of these perhapses are just my guesses. I found an old and very think history of ZTA in a used bookstore a year or two ago, which we gave to my sister-in-law. If I get a chance to check that source, I'll do so.

[aopirose]

Originally Posted by 33girl

And again, WHAT SORORITIES DOES IT REFER TO??? Do they still exist? Were they little sister groups? Are they sororities that died out? What?

I've always wanted to know this too.