After teaching Hellenistic Greek at Concordia for 27 years, I was saddened early this year when the World Meteorological Association announced in March that they would no longer use the Greek alphabet to name hurricanes. Supposedly Greek letters like “alpha” and “beta,” from which comes the word “alphabet,” are too confusing.
So I was heartened today to read that the @WHO has announced, easy-to-say labels for #SARSCoV2 Variants of Concern (VOCs) & Interest (VOIs): letters of the Greek alphabet! Read more here.
For variants of concern:
For variants of interest:
Greek is back! It is not a dead language, even though these variants can kill.
Want to learn more about Greek? Come and study with me at CSP!
Now, if I can just figure out why people turn to Greek to describe disasters…
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