Talk:Omicron

Phonetics?
how does this letter sound? --98.199.206.122 (talk) 00:08, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
 * It is pronounced like an "O" in the Roman Alphabet. The Mysterious El Willstro (talk) 03:08, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

2023-08-21 Further to this "phonetics" comment, I edited the "Mispronunciation" section to add a 2nd reason - "inability to sound out words using phonetics". I think that's the main problem with this "omnicron" thing. The problem is that "Johnny can't read" because "phonetics" is no longer taught in school. It's all "sight reading" - in other words, just look at it and take a guess how it sounds. It's not because they don't have knowledge about the Greek alphabet. There are gazillions of people who don't know the Greek alphabet, but can still pronounce "omicron" correctly (i.e. not "Omnicron"). Ok, end rant. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.233.56.35 (talk) 04:36, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

"Phoenician letter Ayin"
I have two problems with the comparison to the Phoenician Ayin. First, what does it mean for omicron to be "equal to the Phoenician letter Ayin"? Second, why does anyone care? There is no link to the Ayin entry, which gives no clue why this sentence was included in this entry. Rljacobson (talk) 22:20, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Italics needed
Since protected I can't, shows like Futurama need italics per MOS. --208.38.59.163 (talk) 21:34, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Add Greek Name
Most of the other greek letters have a section like "(uppercase Η, lowercase η; Greek: Ήτα Ēta)". It would be nice to have similar one here including the Greek name for the letter. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Maliberty (talk • contribs) 18:09, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Big O Notation
I can't speak to the history of notation, the claim that a script O is usually used in big O notation is false. It's just O. And the claim that big O notation has fallen out of use is just nonsense. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 101.112.255.61 (talk) 23:56, 26 November 2021 (UTC)
 * I removed this nonsense; I also moved the cn label to the introductory sentence, which is very dubious also.--Sapphorain (talk) 15:58, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

Is it omnicron or omicron?
Miss spelled? 184.15.63.171 (talk) 12:04, 28 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Omicron.  Acroterion   (talk)   14:23, 28 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Definitely "omicron". Also, it's "misspelled" while we're on the topic. —  void  xor  00:12, 30 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Omikron actually, c is Latin, k is greek Norschweden (talk) 12:40, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

Edit request
The "Use" section says


 * ... its use is limited since both upper case and lower case (&Omicron; &omicron;) are indistinguishable from the Latin letter "oh" (O o) and difficult to distinguish from the Arabic numeral "zero" (0).

The use of "oh" to refer to the letter is peculiar; there isn't even a mention of the letter at the Oh disambiguation page. Change requested: replace the above with:


 * ... its use is limited because both upper case and lower case are indistinguishable from the Latin letter O and are difficult to distinguish from the number 0.

2001:8B0:181:1:1853:4DDB:B37B:60CC (talk) 13:06, 29 November 2021 (UTC)


 * ✅. I fully agree. —  void  xor  00:10, 30 November 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 6 December 2021
When it came time to name the potentially dangerous new variant that has emerged in southern Africa, the next letter in alphabetical order was Nu, which officials thought would be too easily confused with “new.”

The letter after that was even more complicated: Xi, a name that in its transliteration, though not its pronunciation, happens to belong to the leader of China, Xi Jinping. So they skipped both and named the new variant Omicron.

“‘Nu’ is too easily confounded with ‘new,’ and ‘Xi’ was not used because it is a common last name,” a spokesman, Tarik Jasarevic, said on Saturday in an emailed response to questions about skipping the two letters. 122.162.29.181 (talk) 17:59, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Note that this is also the page for the Greek letter, not the COVID variant Cannolis (talk) 18:42, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Greek pronunciation
How does native Greek speakers pronounce it? --Yejianfei (talk) 02:18, 2 January 2022 (UTC)