I saw this as a joke somewhere, but it got me wondering what the answer was. Why is the alphabet in that order? Who decided A was the first letter, B was the second, and so on? –Eric S., via e-mail ...

Alpha, beta, omicron... These three words bring to mind whiffs of hydroalcoholic gel and the feel of a mask on the face. Indeed, the covid variants were named using Greek letters. Yet this alphabet ...