The most mispronounced words of 2021 include "Omicron," "dogecoin" and singer Billie Eilish's last name
CBSN
Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter Billie Eilish and Philadelphia Eagles center Jason Kelce have something in common — broadcasters butcher their names. Virtually everyone is having trouble with "Omicron." And "cheugy" is apparently a lot to chew on.
All four made it onto this year's list of most mispronounced words as compiled by the U.S. Captioning Company, which captions and subtitles real-time events on TV and in courtrooms.
The list released Tuesday identifies the words that proved most challenging for newsreaders and people on television to pronounce this year.
Ashley White received her earliest combat action badge from the United States Army soon after the first lieutenant arrived in Afghanistan. The silver military award, recognizing soldiers who've been personally engaged by an attacker during conflict, was considered an achievement in and of itself as well as an affirming rite of passage for the newly deployed. White had earned it for using her own body to shield a group of civilian women and children from gunfire that broke out in the midst of her third mission in Kandahar province. All of them survived. She never mentioned the badge to anyone in her battalion.