Health experts, world leaders, and news anchors have all been flubbing the pronunciation of Omicron, the latest COVID-19 variant. On Nov. 26, Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, a COVID technical lead at the World Health Organization, announced to the world the newest COVID-19 variant and pronounced it “Oh-my-kraan.”
Three days later, President Joe Biden gave a briefing on the new variant alongside Dr. Anthony Fauci and Vice President Kamala Harris and called it “ah-me-cron.”
Late-night television program The Daily Show posted a Youtube clip up with this caption: “What makes the Omicron variant so dangerous is that nobody knows how tf to say it.”
The video included clips of news anchors, members of the public, and the president mispronouncing the name.
Even Merriam-Webster’s dictionary is split on the issue. It offers two pronunciation options: “ˈä-mə-ˌkrän” as the American English pronunciation and “ō-ˈmī-(ˌ)krän” as the British English pronunciation.
To add to the shenanigans, Twitter users have jokingly called the new variant “Omarion” after the former lead singer of the group B2K.
https://twitter.com/aura_of_gold/status/1465556026917376000?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1465556026917376000%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.revolt.tv%2Fnews%2F2021%2F11%2F30%2F22809652%2Fblack-twitter-reacts-omarion-covid-19-variant
While the world learns to pronounce Omicron, we have settled on “ah-muh-kraan” at Straight Arrow News.
