Omicron.....

[ToraToraTora]

what happened to Epsilon, Zeta, Eta, Theta, Iota ,Kappa, Lambda, Mu, Nu and XI?

[diddlydo]

I asked that on this site a few days ago!

[diddlydo]

And before you ask TTT here's the link to my post:
https://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/ChatterBank/Question1774868.html

[emmie]

no idea, i guess they thought it sounded important, other than that?

[jno]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variants_of_SARS-CoV-2#Former_variants_of_interest

[Fitzer]

They’ve all been used https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variants_of_SARS-CoV-2?wprov=sfti1 we only hear about the variants of concern (VOC) the others were variants of interest

[bobbinwales]

Only nu was free and as someone said the other day that could of cause confusions it sound's like 'new'

[bhg481]

PP - thank you. It's a long time since I used the Greek alphabet in my maths but I remembered it being pronounced oh-my-kron and not how it's being pronounced by the "experts".

[THECORBYLOON]

The Oxford English Dictionary gives three different British pronunciations.

[Peter Pedant]

he dictionary as Corbyloon knows
or should
that english does not have an academy and dictionaries record but do not proscribe.
Hence obviously 'wrong' meanings are given
like: disinterested as uninterested rather than fair or dispassionate

My pash- Mary beard - I have a school boy pash for her - says oh-my-kron

Boris says ommi - cron like ommy-gosh
and since he read Greats ( has to be Oxford if you think about it) and since he read Greats, I bet he thinks each time he says ommi-cron
"God you ignorant proles! how right it is that a crowdda old etonians......"

[Gromit]

A Private Eye reject

https://ibb.co/WgtVgjz

[Peter Pedant]

yeah foo
I was gonna educate all you proles:

Simonides invented the art of mnemonics; he also invented the long vowels and double consonants and the third note on the lyre. He was born in the 56th Olympiad ...

yeah the long vowels were there but he invented the characters omega and eta,

and then I thought - - - ommi-kron er isnt a long vowel

to good to spike tho - sozza

[jno]

hm, very good, gromit, I'd have run that.

[royfromaus]

I think Hugh (quite rightly imo) binned those lyrics because they weren't as catchy as 'dear old Lenny?
The great Elmyra, and Sancho Panza?'

[Etch]

Phew, I'm glad Peter Pedant is seeing sense on the pronunciation of 'omicron'; I thought his classics education had deserted him. 'Omicron' in Greek means 'short o', so the letter represents the short 'o' sound, as in 'pot', and the names of Greek letters are pronounced starting with the sounds that they represent. So 'omicron' should start 'omm' and not 'ohm'. The long 'o' sound ('oh') is represented by the letter omega which, funnily enough, means 'large (or long) o'. I wonder if those who pronounce 'omicron' as "oh-my-cron" say "omm-eh-gah" rather than "ohm-eh-gah"?

[Prudie]

Well at least the experts must think there aren't many more variants to come or they would have picked a naming system that had more options.

[Zacs-Master]

Alpha 2.0
Beta 2.0
Gamma 2.0...................

[Spicerack]

It wasn't always named after Greek letters.
Some of you may remember when I called it the 'Chinese Virus' on this site. The Woke went into meltdown. Some just blubbed but others became aggressive and quite threatening.
Suitably cowed, I swore I wouldn't make that mistake again.
So you can just imagine my surprise when, shortly afterwards, the very same people were comparing the Brazilian Variant to the South African Variant.
The communists at the WHO realised their AB comrades had painted themselves into a corner and introduced the current system to save their blushes.

[Spicerack]

For similar reasons, nothing bad will ever be named Xi.

[1ozzy]

Except maybe this bloke Spicey

https://darylcagle.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2018/11/beltsandroads.png