Omicron and Tsitsipas lead a list of names misspoken by US broadcasters

omicron greek letter symbol 1

Stefanos Tsitsipas is ranked the fourth-best men's tennis player in the world.

Omicron is a letter in the Greek alphabet which is the name of the newest variant of COVID-19.

All three of these have something in common, according to the US Captioning Company. They are all being botched by broadcasters in the United States.

They made the list of the most mispronounced words compiled by the organisation, which captions and subtitles real-time events on TV and in courtrooms.

The caption company said it surveyed its members to generate the list, which is now in its sixth year and was commissioned by Babbel, a language-learning platform with headquarters in Berlin and New York.

"Newscasters in the US have struggled with 2021′s new words and names while reporting on key sporting events, viral internet trends and emerging celebrities," according to Esteban Touma, a teacher for Babbel Live.

"As a language teacher, it's always interesting to see that some of these terms are usually new colloquialisms, or are rooted or borrowed from another language.

"As a non-native [English] speaker, I must confess it's fun to see English speakers stumbling a bit for a change."

Copyright Greekcitytimes 2024