Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
It’s a Good Thing He Doesn’t Lisp
Brandon had a news conference of sorts today. It was great standup comedy though it shouldn’t have been. It was about the Omicron variant of Covid. But … was it?
Brandon started off with this line. “When I was elected, I said I would always be honest with you.”
He had me laughing from the beginning.
In the next sentence, he told us that the new variant was the OmNicron. Not Omicron. Has someone changed the Greek alphabet? Is Omicron too gender-specific or racist? With everything else these woke fools are doing, they may have. I just didn’t get the memo.
But Brandon then mispronounced it several more times in the course of his standup routine.
I know, he’s old. He’s always been mentally slow and is slower now. Crazy Brandon, right?
But then Brandon calls on St. Anthony to make a pronouncement. And St. Anthony pronounces it OmNicron as well.
What? Is dementia catchable? Evidently.
So, I’m laughing at these people.
Then, Brandon allows certain members of the press sycophancy in a no doubt pre-rehearsed manner to ask questions. And sure enough, it’s OmNicron again.
After that, I’m just glad Brandon doesn’t have a lisp. Yet.
Published in Humor
I have a friend named Megan, and she insists it’s pronounced MAY-gen (soft “g”). Does that help, or confuse?
Yeah. And where do they get al-yew-MIN-ee-yum from?
Yeah, I couldn’t find anything “lisp-able,” either. But I suffered through only about the first five minutes. Seemed much longer, though.
I once talked to an economist working out of the Spanish embassy in Bangkok, and at one point I was thrown for a loop when she started referring to Balenthia. I wondered if that was near Mallorca, or perhaps Atlantis, because she was so clear in her pronunciation. It was weeks later that I realized that she was saying Valencia with a true Castilian accent.
Not like how I learned it Vene’uela.
It confuses. You mean MAY-zhen? Or MAY-dgen?
Delaware
First time I went to Spain, the border official started talking to me in Spanish asking if I had anything to declare and I started laughing. He asked what was so funny and I explained I was a Nordoamericano used to Mexican Spanish. He just waved me on.
O-MAGA
Sorry, hadn’t read #19 yet.
You still thought of it, right?
I’m sure he likes to think so. :-)
I think they get it from the convention of ending names of elements with the min-EE-yum pronunciation. For some reason Americans dropped the EE syllable only in Aluminum – we don’t say Magnesum, or Berillum, or Unobtainum.
McWhorter probably has the details.
OmNicron sounds like a Marvel super-villain. Didn’t he face off against Spider-Man and the Silver Surfer?
Do they say Chrysanthem-ee-yum, too? But I see your point. They do pronounce erudite er-yew-dite.
Let’s Go Brandon!
Two zingers right there. Almost as ridiculous as people our side believing either.
To be fair, our limey cousins also spell aluminum different. They pronounce it the way we would, if only the spelt it right.
Maybe he said it. He didn’t mean it.
Omnicron. Okay. That would be six minutes on the next Saturday Night Live.
I appreciate that he said was cause for concern, not panic, and that there is no need for lockdowns. Good. The rest of the media will probably take note and go along, and find something else to hype – say, “The GOP believes the Omicron is a liberal plot to return to mail-in ballots for the 2022 midterms,” or something. Once GOP overreach and pouncing and seizing is sufficient, the smart set will drop OMG DEATH VARIANT and move to wry, withering, pithy jibes at the GOP MELTDOWN, or something. Bonus: when you engage with someone who’s still in 02/20 neurotic panic mode, you can ask “don’t you believe the science? Don’t you believe Joe Biden?”
Obviously it had to originate in Trumpistan, like all things evil.
Brits also can’t pronounce the letter “R” when it a appears before a vowel or at the end of a word.
I think the whole press conference was a safe way of putting our President-in-hiding out there amid criticism that he doesn’t do interviews or press conferences. This way he doesn’t have to answer any real political questions, which would have been catastrophic.. But he still manages to flub it up.
It’s like “Corps” with a hard P . . .
If the reporting from South Africa is right, this is more contagious but you don’t get as sick.
It seems to me that this is what is both expected as the virus mutates over time and what we want.
Bring Covid back down to a easy to catch common cold.
This is what many actual experts in virology were saying 18 months ago. That it would mutate until it was just a mild cold, and then join our other four or five regularly circulating coronaviruses. Someone should tell Mr. I AM SCIENCE what the actual science is.
As I recall, the British wrote to their American colleagues about the discovery of a new element and accidentally misspelled it, leaving out the I in the last syllable. The Americans took their best guess at pronouncing it. I suppose by the time the error was discovered, no one was willing to change how they were spelling and pronouncing it.
Ha. Neither can Rhode Islanders. I needed a translator when I lived there.
Neither can my brother-in-law. And he’s from Cleveland!
Before a vowel?
The Bwitish nevuh pwonounce awwas eithuh befaw vowels aw at the end of a word. It’s just how they woll.