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Help Settle a Debate: Pronounciation of 'μ'

Rybee

Rybee

Bluelighter
Joined
May 29, 2013
Messages
1,305
So I was just talking with a friend about μ-opioid receptors with and I found their pronunciation of 'μ' to be different to how I've always heard it pronounce, but they insisted they were correct. So to help settle a debate between friends, please can you type, phonetically, how you would pronounce it, and where in the world you're from?

Thanks!
 
" moo " although a shorter vowel than the drawn out cow noise lol

At least that's how it sounded when I learned Greek alphabet

From USA
 
If you're going by the ancient Greek pronunciation, "moo". If you're going by the modern Greek pronunciation, it rhymes with "few". The name of this letter uses the Greek upsilon as the vowel, which today has a sound similar to the French "u" or the German "ue" -- something between an I and a U, pronounced with rounded lips.

While we're at it, I have a real pet peeve for "μg" used to abbreviate "micrograms" when people are handwriting. Even worse is when people are typing and can't be bothered to pull up the unicode character map, so attempt to approximate the look of the mu by typing "ug". Jesus people, is it that hard to write or type "mcg"?! That's the only acceptable abbreviation for "micrograms" in any healthcare setting in the US, by the way -- "μg" and "ug" get mistaken for other units easily.
 
MyDoorsAreOpen said:
If you're going by the ancient Greek pronunciation, "moo". If you're going by the modern Greek pronunciation, it rhymes with "few".
Click to expand...

This is probably the source of the confusion! Thanks for the helpful reply :)

You actually made me chuckle with the mcg/μg thing. Last year, my pain management doctor wrote me a prescription for '50mcg Transdermal Fentanyl Patches' and the dippy woman at the pharmacy told me that they 'didn't stock that strength' and only had them in (as she said aloud) 'fifty yew-geez'.

Knowing what she meant, I was like 'Yeah that's what I'm after - 50mcg'. After a brief period of frustration she eventually showed me the box that had '50μg' written on it and stated that she couldn't dispense my prescription because it said mcg. Fortunately she was only an assistant at the pharmacy and not an actual pharmacist. She was pretty embarrassed when the pharmacist explained what 'μg' was, and then apologised profusely.

An honest mistake, but yes... The use of μg can be irritating!
 
Last edited:
Mew like the pokemon!

151Mew.png
 
Rybee said:
This is probably the source of the confusion! Thanks for the helpful reply :)

You actually made me chuckle with the mcg/μg thing. Last year, my pain management doctor wrote me a prescription for '50mcg Transdermal Fentanyl Patches' and the dippy woman at the pharmacy told me that they 'didn't stock that strength' and only had them in (as she said aloud) 'fifty yew-geez'.

Knowing what she meant, I was like 'Yeah that's what I'm after - 50mcg'. After a brief period of frustration she eventually showed me the box that had '50μg' written on it and stated that she couldn't dispense my prescription because it said mcg. Fortunately she was only an assistant at the pharmacy and not an actual pharmacist. She was pretty embarrassed when the pharmacist explained what 'μg' was, and then apologised profusely.

An honest mistake, but yes... The use of μg can be irritating!
Click to expand...

It's moments like this that I don't feel so misunderstood or annoying, being a verbal thinker who's good at expressing himself in a quantitative thinker's world. :)

If I'm ever teaching medical students and I see "ug" written out, I think I'm going to get into the annoying and deterring habit of placing my finger down hard on it, facing the student, and half seriously yelling "Ugh!"

The tradition of using Greek letters in scientific and mathematic notation in the Roman-alphabet-using world is really a dangerous anachronism, which dates back to a time when all educated people learned the Classics, and really deserves a rant all its own. I am in the habit of fully spelling out, in Roman letters, all Greek letters that I use, whether I'm writing by hand or typing. I have a serious pet peeve for bureaucratic hold-ups due to misunderstandings and need for clarification of ambiguous characters or abbreviations. I find this habit is welcome by people I work with, and this seems to be the growing trend, at least in more applied sciences like healthcare and engineering. I'll even write "3.14" or "pi". I'll write "delta", instead of drawing a little triangle or a "d" with a loopy top.

Hebrew and Cyrillic letters have no place in Western scientific notation, IMHO, but I'd fully spell those out too.
 
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