Omicron - the newest variant of Covid-19 that’s causing concern around the world - is also causing people to pronounce it in various ways.
And if you’re anything like Trevor Noah, you may go as far as to create a montage of news anchors, President Joe Biden, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and everyday folks trying and failing to pronounce the variant’s name.
On Monday’s episode of The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, the comedian highlighted some of the moments people pronounced omicron, including but not limited to: omi-cron, ah- mi-cron,oh-mee-cron, oh-my-cron, ah-mee-cron and om-ni-cron.
Once Noah published the montage on Twitter, people couldn’t resist commenting.
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What makes the Omicron variant so dangerous is that nobody knows how tf to say it pic.twitter.com/skvqnRryf8
— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) November 29, 2021
“B.1.1.529 would’ve been easier,” someone wrote, citing omicron’s strain classification.
“We may have to rebrand the variant to bring consensus on what to call it,” wrote Pat Kiernan for Spectrum News NY1.
A third jokingly asked, “How do you pronounce it again.”
Omicron, which is named after the 15th letter of the Greek alphabet, is pronounced “oh-my-cron” with emphasis on the second syllable.
So it seems that some got the pronunciation down pat.
Omicron was first reported to the World Health Organisation (WHO) by South Africa, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The new strain is said to be the most transmissible version of the virus yet and has now spread to t Europe and the UK following its discovery in South Africa, Botswana and South Africa.
