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.

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.

the one she belongs to is called a fraternity

They 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

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.

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.

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.

Maybe these co-educational "fraternities" could borrow the German geschwisterkeit.

> geschwisterkeit

what kind of wind do you need for that thing?

I like it because it means "siblinghood", but is clearly derived from the word for sister, not that for brother.

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).

>The correct word is Geschwisterlichkeit.

yes, and that's a much more attractive word, isn't it?!

-jimmy (the greek) sardonios

I made up geschwisterkeit. I ought to have known that humorous inventiveness is not something German is renowned for.

> geschwisterkeit

what's googlewhack in German? <smile>

but there's always humorous invectiveness... <smile again>

Who's your emoticon?

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>

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 ...

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*