Stefanos Tsitsipas is one of the headline acts in tennis but, for some, simply saying his name is a challenge, which landed him on a list of the most mispronounced words of 2021 on Tuesday.
The list, compiled by the U.S. Captioning Company and commissioned by language-learning platform Babbel, is based on a poll of captioning professionals.
They identified frequently used, topical words that newscasters and people on television struggled to pronounce correctly this year.
World No. 4 Tsitsipas advanced to his first Grand Slam final at June¡¯s French Open, giving the 23-year-old Greek added exposure and sports commentators around the world a hard time.
Tsitsipas was not the only athlete to appear on the sixth edition of the list, after Philadelphia Eagles center Jason Kelce revealed in a radio interview that his teammates and the media had been mispronouncing his name for years.
The 11 other words that made the list included new COVID-19 strain Omicron and two cryptocurrencies ¡ª Dogecoin and Ethereum.
Slang term Cheugy,¡± fast-food restaurant chain Chipotle, South Korean treat Dalgona, singer Billie Eilish and Suez Canal-blocking ship Ever Given also made the list.
Scottish city Glasgow, Chinese fashion company Shein and beauty filter trend Yassify rounded out the list.
¡°Newscasters in the U.S. have struggled with 2021¡¯s new words and names while reporting on key sporting events, viral internet trends and emerging celebrities,¡± said Esteban Touma, a Babbel Live teacher.
¡°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.
¡°And as a non-native speaker, I must confess it¡¯s fun to see English speakers stumbling a bit for a change.¡±
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