Omicron—Pronunciation

About half the newscasters I have heard pronounce omicron with a long o sound at the front, about half with a short o. Who is right?

Depending on which version of the alphabet is used, Omicron is the fifteenth letter of the ancient Greek alphabet. English speakers will be happy to know it looks like this:

O

But that doesn’t help much, does it? The inside information I can give you is that Greek has two letters that correspond to our o. The other is omega, the last letter of that alphabet.

Ω

 That should look familiar. I’m not talking about watches. A lot of science fiction novels and shows use that as a symbol, sometimes symbolizing an ultimate program or device.

Omicron corresponds to our short o. Omega corresponds to our long o. So omicron should be pronounced with a short o at the front. Otherwise, that just negates their having the two different letters.

But I’m not done. What about the letter i in the middle? That corresponds to the Greek letter iota, which looks a lot like our letter i. Sometimes it’s pronounced like short i, sometimes like a long e. (For that second one, think of someone singing Do Re Mi.)

I prefer that second pronunciation. That makes it om-ee-cron. I have only heard two female newscasters pronounce it that way—or perhaps it was the same one. Anyway, I’m pushing for people to pronounce it that way, and you can show off your new-found prowess in Greek by doing so.

(Those who really know the ancient Greek will point out that lower case omicron looks like our o, while lower case omega looks like a curly w, like this: ω. But that is a little complicated.)