Sunday 19 December 2021

OM-Nee-Cron, O-Mike-Ron or OH-My-Cron

Naming Coronavirus variants in the Greek Alphabet was always going to cause problems and we had no problem pronouncing Alpha, Beta and Delta but as the likes of Epsilon, Zeta, Iota and Kappa didn't turn out to be variants of concern, we went to Omicron which very much was of concern and so began the debate over OM-Nee-Cron, OM-Mee-Cron or OH-My-Cron.
Scholar, Dr Armand D'Angour, explained that in Ancient Greek it would be said as 'Oh-Mee-kron' with the long e sound but in Modern Greek it's 'Oh-me-cron, with a short e.
Seems fair enough to me, it's their alphabet we are using after all but the Merriam Webster Dictionary people say it should be 'OH-muh-kraan' and that is the way i have heard World Health Organization officials pronounce it but the Oxford English dictionary guys have piled in with 'o-MIKE-Ron' as the word is a compound from the Greek 'o mikron' which means 'small o'.
The British seem to have developed inserting the letter 'n' in it to make it Omni-Kron and that is being put down to it being more pleasing to an English speakers ear with words we know such as omnibus, omnipotent and omnipresent but that is just all sorts of wrong.
Until another variant pops up, (pi next and there can be no doubt over that one) it’s going to be contentious but more importantly, contagious so let's not have any big meetings to discuss it.

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