Big O, little o, what begins with O?

From http://www.literaryduckblog.org/
wp-content/uploads/2011/03/77692.jpeg.
Also, random fact: if you search "Big O"
in Google Images, most of the first
images are from a Japanese TV show called
The Big O: without this warning, you'd
be like me and mystified by all the pictures
of giant robots if you searched it.

     If you didn't understand the title, you probably didn't read Dr. Seuss's ABC book when you were young. Or you did, and just don't remember (if you need a recommendation for good books to teach little kids the alphabet, I formally endorse this one). Regardless, it's the reason I'm momentarily distracted whenever someone mentions Big O notation. By the way, the correct answer is "Ostrich, oil, orange owl."

     I'll admit it: I'm terrible with figuring out an algorithm's efficiency. It's that and the fact I maybe kinda sorta sometimes forget to hand stuff in that dropped my mark significantly in CSC165. I know it's more impressive (and obviously faster) the better an algorithm is, but I've always felt that Python was designed to be slower, yet more powerful to write and easier to read. If I was aiming to do tasks fast, I would code them in C or C++, but we write them in Python because it's easier to read and write without pouring over our code looking for an elusive semicolon.