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#144586 06/29/05 03:13 PM
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Jackie Offline OP
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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.


#144587 06/29/05 05:33 PM
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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.


#144588 06/29/05 08:36 PM
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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


#144589 06/29/05 09:43 PM
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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.


#144590 06/29/05 10:06 PM
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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.


#144591 06/30/05 12:21 AM
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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.


#144592 06/30/05 01:31 AM
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Maybe these co-educational "fraternities" could borrow the German geschwisterkeit.


#144593 06/30/05 02:05 AM
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> geschwisterkeit

what kind of wind do you need for that thing?



formerly known as etaoin...
#144594 06/30/05 02:09 AM
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I like it because it means "siblinghood", but is clearly derived from the word for sister, not that for brother.


#144595 06/30/05 05:29 AM
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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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