Re: RT list: Defending the Explicature

I guess this is a typical 'ham sandwich' situation where the Greek letters
worn by fraternity (as well as sorority) members gave rise to the metonymy
'Greek' - 'someone who wears Greek letters on his/her t-shirt'. And the
'real' Greek students may want to be creative here and call their
associations something like 'Students Ellinos' or 'Greeks! not Geeks' to
separate themselves from the metonymic beer-drinking fraternities lest the
slogan 'Go Greeks - buy friends!' should apply also to them...

Best,
Andre

On Sat, May 3, 2008 at 11:07 PM, Hanno T. Beck <banneker@progress.org>
wrote:

>
> I am reminded of my own days in graduate school, long ago, when I would
> notice occasional articles in the campus newspaper about the "Greek
> Students
> Association" and how "the Greek community is being blamed for the
> incident"
> and so on -- invariably referring, not to people of Greek heritage at all,
> but to male students associated with fraternities. One wonders how
> students
> from Greece would feel if denied membership in the "Greek Students
> Association", and then if they chose to form their own organization, what
> should they call it?
>
> Hanno Beck
>
>
>
Received on Sun May 4 07:08:43 2008