However, language experts have suggested that it may in fact be more accurate to pronounce Omicron in the way that the BBC have chosen to do. In response, Jess Brammar, the editor of the BBC's news channel, joked on Twitter: 'Guilty as charged, I did not do Greek at school'. But I do find it a bit odd that the BBC News is saying omicron with the stress on the first syllable.'Ī Telegraph reader added in a letter that 'clearly' no-one at the BBC had studied Greek at school, because they said the word should be pronounced 'oh-my-cron', 'with the emphasis on the second syllable'. She said: 'I am NOT a technical ancient linguist. The BBC has pronounced it as 'OM-mi-cron', with heavy emphasis on the first syllable.īut on Sunday, well-known historian and classicist Mary Beard took to Twitter to criticise the corporation's choice of emphasis. The new Omicron variant of coronavirus has sparked fears in Britain and around the world that the fight against a pandemic which has raged for nearly two years might be seriously set back.īut now, a new war has broken out: over how to say the variant's name, which is the 15th letter in the Greek alphabet.

How to you pronounce omicron