The current global buzzword, along with being a massive headache for healthcare, has proven to be troublesome for those attempting to pronounce it. Indeed, I am talking about Omicron, that Greek letter of the alphabet many (including yours truly) did not know existed. This lack of familiarity has caused confusion; it also sounds as if it were a character from the Transformers universe (while fans of the series Futurama would say the word is already known to them, arguably it isn’t as popular a cultural reference as the aforementioned robots in disguise). It is sometimes mispronounced as Omnicron, which is perhaps not surprising given that ‘omni’ is a fairly common (or should I say omnipresent) prefix. Differences in pronunciation between American and British English also come to the fore for the first syllable – ‘ah’ and ‘oh’ respectively – along with some variations of the second syllable – ‘muh’, ‘my’ and ‘mee’. What seems to be clearer, is the choice of ‘kron’ instead of ‘kruhn’ for the third syllable. Greek speakers are either slightly aghast or amused at how a native word has been butchered in so many unseemly ways.
Of course, mangling English is easy enough to do, given the myriad number of idiosyncrasies that are present in it, and would also perhaps happen as a natural consequence when certain words are said by those who largely speak phonetic languages (i.e. spoken as it is written). Taking our country India as an example, apart from the cliched examples such as ‘tire puncher’ and ‘snacks catcher’, there are several other rather regular words that are repeatedly mispronounced, and I fear I have been guilty of a few of these myself and of which I was rather surprised (and a tad embarrassed) to have realised only recently! Some examples are listed below (I do not endeavour to provide a comprehensive list, nor to delve into technicalities of language):
- Granite: gra-nuht (or gra-nit), not gra-night
- Tuition: tu-i-shun, not tyoo-shun (similarly suicide is su-i-cide, not soo-cide)
- Asthma: azma, not asth-ma
- Coupon: koo-pawn, not koo-pun
- Wednesday: whens-day, not wed-nuss-day
- Calcium: cal-see-um, not cal-shi-um (similarly potassium is potass-ium, not potash-ium)
- Tomb: toom, not toh-mb or tomb (similarly comb is kohm, not koo-mb or koh-mb)
- Pronunciation (indeed, the irony!): pro-nun-cia-shun, not pro-noun-cia-shun
Now it could be argued that pointing out mispronunciations is largely an exercise in pedantry, or perhaps even elitism, given that language is a means to an end (that being communication) and not an end in itself. Languages take on some unique characteristics of the place where they are introduced; they are adapted for local conditions, and as long as the parties communicating are able to make themselves understood, the original pronunciations don’t matter as much. ‘Indian English’ is indeed classified as a dialect, so perhaps it needs better ‘branding’; after all, the sheer number of speakers of the language would merit it! That said, there is no harm in knowing how the words are supposed to be pronounced; as Indians we are adept at speaking multiple languages and perhaps even multiple dialects of those languages, so this can be considered as yet another; to be deployed only when conversing with native English speakers!
The examples listed above, are however just scratching the surface of pronunciation whimsy. That honour would surely be reserved for, in my opinion at least, British places. Brace yourselves for these gems:
- Greenwich: gren-ich
- Thames: temz
- Bicester: bister
- Worcester: wuus-ter
- Alnwick: annick
- Happisburgh: haze-bruh
Trust the British not to disappoint, as the English language did originate there. Thankfully they limited naming such places to within their own shores!