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A non-US'n asked me what sororities and fraternities are. I explained to the best of my somewhat limited knowledge. I'd be interested to see how the rest of you view them, as well as your own definitions, please.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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I know very little about them; was never into the Greek life, as if it was  . But here's a tidbit to further confuse things for your non-USn, Jackie: I recently learned from the daughter of a friend that many colleges nowadays have co-ed (is that word still current?) organizations: the one she belongs to is called a fraternity. Go figger.
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the one she belongs to is called a fraternityThey should call it a fratority - especially if she's fraternizing with any of the brothers. :) P.S. A Google search reveals that Theta Sigma thought of this at least 3 years before I did: Extract from Theta Sigma website: The term ?fratority,? combining fraternity and sorority, was adopted to demonstrate that ?some members have penises and others do not.?http://snipurl.com/fxa4
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Carpal Tunnel
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I was in one of a couple of out-groups back in my first pass at college in the pre-60 60s. We called ourselves barbarians because we considered "independent" to be a negative term. There was a co-ed subset of the two groups that we called Alpha Wu (because we hung out at the local A&W root beer stand) and that we referred to as a furority.
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colleges nowadays have co-ed (is that word still current?) organizations
It's been my impression that these coed groups are (or started out as) usually professional rather than primarily social organizations. For example, a business "fraternity" would have both male and female business majors. But now that I think about it, I'm not sure any of the coed professional groups call themselves "sororities." Hmm.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Co-ed frats aren't just "nowadays." I was one of a class of two first female members of the MSU chapter of AKPsi back in the day.
AKPsi is a "professional" frat in that it is for business majors, but it is (at least, our chapter was) very social, in that it had a residential house and the usual menu of parties, intermural teams and such.
It was, and is, called a frat because it started as a frat.
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enthusiast
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enthusiast
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Maybe these co-educational "fraternities" could borrow the German geschwisterkeit.
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Carpal Tunnel
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> geschwisterkeit
what kind of wind do you need for that thing?
formerly known as etaoin...
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enthusiast
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I like it because it means "siblinghood", but is clearly derived from the word for sister, not that for brother.
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old hand
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but is clearly derived from the word for sister, not that for brother - correct, from a purely etymological standpoint, but "Geschwister" was used for siblings of mixed gender way before the whole gender question arose. Nothing against equality, but I find "Geschwisterkeit" a linguistic monster.
Edit - now I know why: Google yields zero hits on Geschwisterkeit. The correct word is Geschwisterlichkeit (10400 German-language hits).
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Carpal Tunnel
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>The correct word is Geschwisterlichkeit.
yes, and that's a much more attractive word, isn't it?!
-jimmy (the greek) sardonios
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enthusiast
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enthusiast
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I made up geschwisterkeit. I ought to have known that humorous inventiveness is not something German is renowned for.
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Carpal Tunnel
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> geschwisterkeit
what's googlewhack in German? <smile>
but there's always humorous invectiveness... <smile again>
formerly known as etaoin...
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Carpal Tunnel
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I'm really not liking the smileys, so I thought I would make my own... I couldn't find a smiley of James Brown... <smirk>
formerly known as etaoin...
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Geschwisterlichkeit
That's not workable: any word describing a frat must be capable of being pronounced by at least half of the frat members at least half of the time.
On the other hand, it *would* make a good pledge test ...
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Geschwisterlichkeit
That's not workable: any word describing a frat must be capable of being pronounced by at least half of the frat members at least half of the time.
On the other hand, it *would* make a good pledge test ...
*snerk*
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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In reply to:
I know very little about them; was never into the Greek life, as if it was .
I did find this confusing a couple of weeks ago when wandering round the website of a US students' organisation and assumed the link was for those studying New Testament Greek.
No mention of Greek love either  .
Bingley
Bingley
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Look for that around back.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Way back when I was in university there were frat houses but no sorority houses due to a badly written law that made them fit within the definition of bordello. (don't know if they changed the law by now)
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