Vol. 46 No. 2 (1998)
Research Article

The Other Nicknames of American Greek-Letter Organizations

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  • Thomas E. Murray
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1179/nam.1998.46.2.113

Published 1998-06-01

Copyright (c) 1998 Maney

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Abstract

Abstract

Greek sororities and fraternities in the United States have not one nickname, but two—the second being a sexually-embellished version of the first. These latter, “dirty”, nicknames have been created within a narrowlydefined set of sociocultural and linguistic rules, and, beyond revealing the usual adolescent preoccupation with sex, serve at least one important psycho-social function in the Greek socialization process, to bind !ogether members of a particular secondary group.

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