Welcome back to the Learn English podcast, the podcast teaching English in context so you can learn naturally.
On today's episode, I want to focus on a very particular part of American culture and that is Greek life.
You might not have heard this term before, but you probably have seen some depictions of it in TV shows and movies, and what it is is the... fraternity and sorority life at college campuses across the United States.
This is a real aspect of American culture.
It is something that exists at almost every college or university here in the US.
And on today's episode, I want to talk a little bit about the history of these fraternities and sororities.
And the vocabulary that is part of this Greek life culture and a process that is probably occurring right now across the United States.
So if you're interested in learning more about this aspect of American culture, while of course improving your vocabulary and your listening comprehension, Then follow along because we're about to begin.
Before we get started, I want to remind you to look at the description of this podcast episode.
There you will find the vocabulary list of the words and phrases that I used in the episode so you can take them and build your English vocabulary.
Now let's talk about Greek life. The reason that this part of American culture is called Greek life is because In the United States, these fraternities and sororities use Greek letters for their names. some mixture of alpha, sigma, beta, gamma, you name it, any of the Greek letters.
For example, delta, delta, delta, alpha, kappa, phi.
When someone goes to college or university, they have the option to try to become a member of one of these fraternities or sororities. talk a little bit about the history and the differences between these different organizations.
Greek life goes back to the 1700s in the United States, and the very first Greek organization was...
Phi Beta Kappa, which was founded in 1776 at the College of William and Mary in Virginia.
It was originally a literacy and debate society, but it was the first organization of this kind and it definitely grew in popularity and spread throughout the United States.
The organizations are supposed to give some type of social structure for their members.
So members feel like they're part of a tight knit family. family they have brothers or sisters who are part of the organization not literal brothers or sisters but just someone who is in the same organization and is very close to them.
So they get called a brother or sister. It is an option to join one of these Greek organizations.
You can try to join one if you go to a college or university where these organizations exist and you also have the option not to.
So you might be wondering why people want to do it why people want to join like i said the most famous reason is having that social support If you are someone like me who goes to a college or university where you don't know anyone, it can be a little bit scary.
It's hard to make new friends. It might be difficult to figure out where you fit in at a university and Being part of these organizations kind of gives you a built-in social structure.
A group of friends, or at least a group of people that you know, Because you have these events together, you spend time together, and it gives you a way of meeting new people when you are making this transition in your life. to a new college or university.
There of course is also the networking aspect.
There are a lot of famous people who have been part of different fraternities or sororities on college campuses.
A lot of these Greek organizations are very proud of the alumni that they've had graduate. and who were part of these organizations, usually they will promote that a certain famous person was part of their organization.
There have been a lot of presidents who have been part of fraternities.
There are a lot of actors, business leaders, and the organizations definitely want to help their members be successful.
They want their members to do well at college and also with their career later on.
I know that when I was at my undergraduate university, A lot of these organizations would have something called a test bank.
Students who were higher up In college, maybe they were second, third or fourth year students. they would keep their old material from their classes and they would pass kind of pass it down to the newer members.
It was supposed to be a way of helping their members Of course, there are ways of getting academic support without going through the Greek organizations.
But it is something that these sororities or fraternities will claim as a benefit.
It is one thing that they will advertise. to people who are thinking about joining, they will say that they do provide academic support for people who are part of their organization.
There's also a push for leadership. There is a lot of leadership roles within sororities or fraternities, and there's also a lot of networking People who graduate from these organizations will come back for alumni events.
They will network with the current members and a lot of people are able to get business contacts or maybe even job opportunities. because they are a part of a certain organization.
Of course, that also has its drawbacks because historically, these different organizations have been a little bit elitist.
So elite means superior. So when you say elitist, it means people who maybe think they are better than other people, people who are very rich. people who are very educated.
And with some of these organizations, if they were elitist, they would maybe... only allow members in who were of a certain race, of a certain ethnic group, from a certain social class, and if they are helping their members with job opportunities.
That's job opportunities that are not available to just the general population, So this has been one of the points of controversy with the Greek organizations.
But it definitely can be a benefit for people who are part of the organization.
Besides that, there's also the tradition aspect.
For example, when I was a first year college student in Los Angeles, One of the people who lived in my dorm who I knew, she was going to join a certain sorority.
There are multiple sororities at my university, but she wanted to just join one particular one, and the reason was... that her mother and her aunts and a lot of her family members were from this particular sorority.
And it was expected that she was going to join and become part of it because that was her family's tradition.
And then of course, there are also the social events.
Some fraternities or sororities will be more focused on philanthropy, which means that they try to help the local community.
They try to do events that help people who are in need.
And then others are more known for their parties, for their social life, for having these fun events on the weekends for their members.
And then of course, there's also professional-based fraternities or sororities.
For example, I was in one when I was in graduate school.
There were three at my particular graduate school and they were all professional based. they were all for helping people develop and grow in the career that they were pursuing that they were going to do.
Now that we've talked about the history and why people join, let's talk about some of the basic vocabulary terms that you will hear when people talk about Greek life.
I've actually mentioned two of these terms multiple times, and they are fraternity and sorority.
A fraternity is a Greek life organization for men.
A sorority is one for women. If it is a coed organization, like the one I was in when I was in graduate school, then it usually gets called a fraternity.
It's just one of those things. If men are in it, it gets called a fraternity.
If it is only for women, it gets called a sorority.
A lot of times especially on undergraduate campuses these organizations also have houses.
So you will hear the name of the fraternity and the house.
Sigma Phi House, for example. This can be just a meeting place.
So if you go to a smaller college, that maybe doesn't have that many people.
Sometimes these houses are just the place where events take place and no one actually lives there.
But sometimes these are actually places where people live.
There might be members of the sorority or fraternity that live in these buildings.
In order to join the organization, there is something called Rush Week.
It's probably something that's occurring right now or is going to occur very, very soon after this episode comes out.
What this is is a week where the different organizations put on events. which are meet and greets or showcases of their fraternity or sorority.
What they do is they introduce themselves, they talk about their organization. for people who are brand new to the college or university.
This is a way for people to try to figure out if they would like to try to join and also a way for the organizations to meet potential new members.
So that potential new member, sometimes it gets abbreviated PNM.
For the letters, potential new member. This is someone who is thinking about joining, who might want to join.
Usually at the end of that week, you actually say which ones you would be interested in joining. and then the Greek organizations do the same thing for the potential new members.
They get to select who they would be interested In having at my university, there was actually a board, I believe, that had the list of the different organizations and all of. the people who were being invited to join.
Now that official invitation to join one of these Greek organizations is called a bid. the organizations are able to select who they want to give a bid to.
It is not open to just anyone who wants to join.
It is a little bit selective. Each organization is only allowed a certain amount of new members.
That means that every year there are people who want to join but end up not getting a bid. don't get invited to join and that's kind of the end of their Greek life experience.
If you do get selected, if you get a bid for one of the organizations that you wanted to join, Then you accept it and you become a pledge to pledge. means that you are promising something.
So the process of pledging means that you are promising to become a member of this particular organization.
Usually in order to actually become a member, you go through some type of initiation. process.
There might be activities, there might be challenges, something that you have to do or go through in order to become a member of whichever Greek organization you are pledging.
Sometimes the pledge process is very short.
Sometimes it is a semester, which usually lasts from September to December. that's sometimes the case.
And then sometimes it's a full year. Usually when you do pledge, you get assigned to a senior member of the organization.
And they become your mentor, your person who helps you through the process.
This is called the big little system. The person who is pledging, the person who is brand new, they get called the little.
And the person who is already a member of the organization gets called the big person.
You can have a big brother, little brother if you are part of a fraternity, or you can have a big sister, little sister if you are part of a sorority.
There's also something called Greek Week at a lot of universities.
This is usually at the end of the school year where the different sororities and fraternities have playful competitions with each other.
They play games. They might try to compete for a trophy or some type of prize.
Another term you will hear is dues. Dues is the amount of money you have to pay to be part of this organization.
These organizations have houses sometimes.
They all throw events. All of that costs money.
So they need to get money from organizations. their members.
If you are a pledge, if you are a member, you have to pay your dues.
These dues can be relatively inexpensive if you join an organization that is local and very small.
Maybe it's only at one university. If you go somewhere that has a national Greek life organization, usually these are expensive.
And like I said, that friend I had when I was at undergrad, I think she said it cost her about $2,000 to join. the sorority that she wanted to join.
And that really goes along the lines of what I was saying about historically having some issues with only accepting people from a certain economic class, because if you are someone who doesn't have a lot of money, the amount of the dues can be a deal breaker.
Some reason to not join the organization because if you can't afford it... you're just not going to be able to join.
And the last vocabulary term is something called the divine nine.
As I said earlier, traditionally some of these Greek organizations were very exclusive and were limiting to who could join them, who they would offer a bid to.
With the history of the United States, a lot of this had to do with race and not allowing people of a certain race to join a fraternity or a For that reason, there was the development of the Black Greek Letter Organizations.
This is comprised of nine historically African American fraternities and sororities.
Traditionally, these have been for people who are Black or African American, and it was a way for them to still have this Greek life experience. when the other organizations were not offering them positions in their organizations.
The Divine Nine is made up of five fraternities and four sororities.
They are at a number of different universities in the country.
Just like with the other Greek life organizations, they also use Greek letters in their names.
They also have a strong tradition of using very particular colors, so each fraternity or sorority has Colors that are exclusive for them that members of their organization use.
They also use different hand signs and greetings that are unique to the Divine Nine.
They also have a history of stylized dance performances that are called Stepping and Strolling. that are a way of expressing pride, history and identity in the organization.
Some famous alumni from the Divine Nine are Dr. Martin Luther King, who we have done multiple episodes on, the former Vice President Kamala Harris, The famous basketball player Michael Jordan were all members of the Divine Nine.
Now, in terms of media depiction, there have been a number of TV shows and movies which we will talk about, but I first want to talk about social media. few years ago, there was this viral trend and it comes up every fall and it is called Bama Rush.
BAMA stands for the University of Alabama.
A lot of times when people talk about it, they shorten it to just be BAMA.
And if you search for Bama Rush on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, you will find a number of videos.
Like I said, the bidding process, the rushing process is competitive.
And at the University of Alabama, it is extremely competitive.
There are a lot of people who want to join, especially the sororities.
There are women who will practice for Rush Week They will plan their outfits.
They will practice small talk and really try to make a good impression.
And in the videos for Bama Rush, you get to see kind of the behind the scenes.
People record themselves. practicing and getting ready to go to a rush event.
People will talk about the rush events and what organizations they are in. interested in.
And then when the bidding process comes out, when people get their bids, you get to see who got a bid and who did not get a bid and there has just been a lot of coverage.
It happens every fall on social media. There will be a lot of coverage of Bama Rush.
And if you are on social media and if you want to kind of see what it's like to try to rush one of these organizations, I would definitely suggest checking that out.
It's actually become so popular that HBO did a documentary on Max. called Bama Rush that you can watch if you are interested in learning more about this process.
There's also been a lot of depictions in TV shows and movies that you can watch if you're trying to get a better idea of Greek life.
Now, I will say that these are fiction, so sometimes they are over-exaggerated, and maybe they have some stereotypes in them that might not be 100%. accurate, but it gives you an idea of what some ideas about Greek life. exist in the United States?
What are some of the cultural aspects and some of the things that people associate with Greek life? the first movie is going to be the oldest movie and that is Animal House it came out in 1978 so it is older But it does have some famous comedians in it, like John Belushi.
It is a comedy. And it's called a frat movie.
So frat is the shortened version of fraternity.
So it shows the over the top. partying and the friendship between the members who are part of the Greek organization.
So it's not really realistic, but it definitely is a well-known movie in the United States and part of pop culture.
Another movie that has that stereotypical over-the-top frat scene is Old School from 2003.
It has Will Ferrell in it. And again, it's just another comedy similar to Animal House in that regard.
But again, showing some of the stereotypes of the lifestyle.
The next movie is Legally Blonde from 2001.
There's really not that much Greek life at the beginning.
Reese Witherspoon's character, Elle Wood, is part of a Again, a little bit stereotypical when it shows the sorority house and the members, but just another example of a depiction of sorority life.
Another comedy about sorority life is The House Bunny.
It stars Anna Faris as a former playboy bunny who becomes the housemother. to a struggling sorority this is from 2008 and again it's just another comedy showing the sorority life And then we have Neighbors from 2014, which is about a couple that lives next to a loud fraternity house with the late night partying and of course them wanting their neighborhood to be quiet shows the conflict that occurs when a regular family lives next to a frat house.
For TV shows, there was actually an ABC family show called Greek, of course, for the Greek life organizations.
It was from 2007 to 2011, and it's probably the most in-depth show about Greek life.
It follows students at a fictional university in the Greek life system, and it shows their drama, their romance, their friendships of course you still get some stereotypes in there but maybe a little bit more accurate of a depiction than those satirical comedy movies And there's also the TV show Scream Queens.
This ran from 2015 to 2006. and it is a horror comedy series.
Again, it shows a fictional sorority and it does have that satirical comedy aspect.
But the main characters who are in the TV show are part of this fictional sorority, and it shows their friendship and the sorority in the backdrop of this.
The TV show. I hope you enjoyed this episode and I hope you learned a little bit about this unique part of American culture.
Greek life is important for a lot of people.
There are a lot of people who are part of these Greek organizations.
I hope you learned a little bit about them, learned some new vocabulary about the process.
If you want more episodes like this in the future, if you want to know more about different aspects of American culture, then please leave a comment and let me know.
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