Books about Fraternities and Sororities

[naraht]

Originally Posted by MysticCat

This is slightly off topic, but I have to share, and this seemed a reasonable place.

Along with keeping an eye open for fraternity/sorority histories, I also keep an eye open for pledge manuals. I've found two in the last few weeks. Yesterday, I was reading through one I bought this weekend (I'll leave the GLO unidentified, but it's the 2006 edition of their manual) and found this in the section on the Greek alphabet:

Adding to the peculiarity of the fraternity language is the fact that a few Greek letters, particularly Xi and Phi, have several pronunciations. After a consonent, they are pronounced "z-eye" and "f-eye." After a vowel the pronuncation changes to "z-ee" ad "f-ee." For example, Alpha Xi Delta is pronounced "Alpha Z-ee Delta," and Theta Xi is pronounced "Theta Z-eye."

I laughed hard at this Greek urban legend being perpetuated in print in a pledge manual -- especially when a page or two later they refer to other orgs, including Alpha Phi Alpha and Alpha Phi Omega. I'm pretty willing to bet that the writer doesn't follow the rule he just recited and call them "Alpha F-ee Alpha" and "Alpha F-ee Omega."

Whichever this GLO is, they aren't alone. When I googled for the quoted text, two *different* Social Fraternities came up as hits (or close hits) for it. These were in copies of their pledge manuals that are in public sections of their National website.

[MysticCat]

Originally Posted by naraht

Whichever this GLO is, they aren't alone. When I googled for the quoted text, two *different* Social Fraternities came up as hits (or close hits) for it. These were in copies of their pledge manuals that are in public sections of their National website.

Oh, they may be alone. I googled too, and while one of the two fraternities I assume you came across had the same first sentence, the full paragraph read this way:

Adding to the peculiarity of the fraternity language is the fact that a few Greek letters (particularly Xi and Phi) have several pronunciations. Sometimes both a Greek and an English form are used in the same name because the particular group prefers it that way — “Alpha Phee” for Alpha Phi. Therefore, be alert to the exceptions to the rules.

Interesting because that section of the pledge manual is very similar to the one I was looking at. But Kappa Sigma edited and got it right.

[naraht]

Originally Posted by MysticCat

Oh, they may be alone. I googled too, and while one of the two fraternities I assume you came across had the same first sentence, the full paragraph read this way:

Adding to the peculiarity of the fraternity language is the fact that a few Greek letters (particularly Xi and Phi) have several pronunciations. Sometimes both a Greek and an English form are used in the same name because the particular group prefers it that way — “Alpha Phee” for Alpha Phi. Therefore, be alert to the exceptions to the rules.

Interesting because that section of the pledge manual is very similar to the one I was looking at. But Kappa Sigma edited and got it right.

Yeah, but I couldn't go into greater depth without identifying the fraternities. Was the other one that Google brought up the one that you found?

[MysticCat]

Originally Posted by naraht

Yeah, but I couldn't go into greater depth without identifying the fraternities. Was the other one that Google brought up the one that you found?

Yep.

[naraht]

Originally Posted by MysticCat

Yep.

Yeah, I don't see a thread of pointing out things that are wrong in other GLOs pledge manuals and identifying the GLO as being healthy for greekchat.

So getting back to books, if someone is interested in joining a particular GLO and that GLO has their pledge manual online, would you recommend they read it?