Panhellenic Toast

[honeychile]

Has anyone ever discovered what the hand motion means? I absolutely love the idea of each sorority using the same motion, then walking off with the hand in the same position. I can't help but wonder if it goes back to something from Phi Beta Kappa.

Confession: When I'm feeling down, I sometimes play that video!

[GammaBelle]

Originally Posted by honeychile

Has anyone ever discovered what the hand motion means? I absolutely love the idea of each sorority using the same motion, then walking off with the hand in the same position. I can't help but wonder if it goes back to something from Phi Beta Kappa.

Confession: When I'm feeling down, I sometimes play that video!

My understanding was always that it was supposed to be a toasting motion, i.e. picture someone swinging a stein

[honeychile]

Originally Posted by GammaBelle

My understanding was always that it was supposed to be a toasting motion, i.e. picture someone swinging a stein

It does look like that. I was just looking for an alternate explanation!

[ree-Xi]

Tried my hand at a verse for Alpha Xi Delta...


"And here's to Alpha Xi Delta in double blue and gold,
Our Quills in our hands and o'er our hearts we hold.
The sisterhood of women of our Fraternity
Inspiring each other since 1893!"

[TSteven]

Originally Posted by adipose

This is my school, and yes, indeed, it is intended to look like a "toast" or swinging a stein. We actually adjusted the motion a few years back to make it look less like a drinking motion, but that is the idea and where it came from (rumor has it that this tradition was originally a drinking song, but I'm not sure about that).

And yes we walk very calmly into the houses, it is actually an infraction at the school to be loud after the toast!

I think the walking calmly at the end of the "toast" adds an air of elegance and mystery.

[honeychile]

Originally Posted by adipose

This is my school, and yes, indeed, it is intended to look like a "toast" or swinging a stein. We actually adjusted the motion a few years back to make it look less like a drinking motion, but that is the idea and where it came from (rumor has it that this tradition was originally a drinking song, but I'm not sure about that).

And yes we walk very calmly into the houses, it is actually an infraction at the school to be loud after the toast!

Originally Posted by TSteven

I think the walking calmly at the end of the "toast" adds an air of elegance and mystery.

I love both quotes!

There are so many times I wonder how different my life would have been had I gone to W&M. FWIW, I had a full scholarship but my parents thought (correctly) that I was too young & immature to accept it. I went to Pitt, supposedly for a year, but pledged ADPi, which isn't at W&M, even though I was a Kappa legacy. *sigh* Things that you wonder, years after the fact!