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Comment by aconbere | Hacker News Reader

I would pronounce pa as “paw”, like papa. Would you say it like the a in “apple”?

None of the above. No one pronounces "aw" like the a in Apple. And most people do dinstinguish between "a" and "aw" by pronouncing the latter more like the a in "awe".

Right I’m just confused how you would pronounce it. Because I would almost certainly default to saying pa like “awe”.

There is a favourite old joke of mine that depends heavily on this pronunciation:

    A dog limps into a bar. The barman looks at him and say "What can I do you for?" and  
    the dog replies "I'm a looking for the man that shot my pa".

"pa" would be pronounced between these two, depending on speaker:

/pɑː/ — if I had to use "normal person's IPA", "pah" would be my attempt. This, to me, is the more common pronunciation. Should rhyme with "bra" … assuming you pronounce that like I do.

/pɔː/ — like "paw" or "awe". This is a region-specific dialect, to me. This appears to be the one you're familiar with.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA/English for a chart.

ESL speaker here, "pa" like in "parking"

Merriam-Webster at least gives one of two possible pronunciations for “pa” as identical to “paw.”

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pa

Relevant for the US.

To me (American Midwest), “papa” (father) and “pawpaw” (a type of fruit) are not pronounced the same way. “Papa” is more like “pahpah”.

If papa is a stand-in for father, I'd pronounce it with a long a, as in father. If papa is a stand-in for grandfather, I'd pronounce the first a as in apple, and the second as in paw. But of also spell it papaw. Seeing 'pa' in its own, I'd never think it was pronounced like paw, unless I was reading something written in Hungarian.

I pronounce 'pa' like 'paw.' Short for papa I guess. Always have, always will.

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