‘There once was a curate of Kew, / Who kept a young cat in a pew,’ began my husband when the news bulletin on the wireless mentioned the omicron variant of coronavirus. The naming of the variant has caused much dissension. Old-fashioned speakers of English object to the BBC’s preference for the pronunciation ommi-cron, with the stress on the first syllable, and insist it should be oh-my-cron, with the stress on the second.
The Oxford English Dictionary provides six pronunciations, four in British English (the ones mentioned and two more that depend on whether the last vowel is indeterminate: -cruhn). American speakers of English seem not to entertain the possibility of pronouncing the middle syllable as -my-, though they are perfectly happy to do so in the word micron.
Omicron appears not to have been mentioned in English until 1631.
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