One kind of puzzle in my word-puzzle book gives you an alphabetical listing of oh, 40 to 60 syllables, followed by clues for the 20-25 words to make of them.

One I had to read the clue to get was pharaoh. They had AOH as the first syllable in the list, which you would have thought I'd get, since it's such an unusual spelling.

But I have always heard pharaoh pronounced as fay-row. Is this simply a regional thing for me? Are there people who pronounce it as fair-owe, which is the only pronunciation I can come up with that explains the book's dividing it into phar and aoh.

I've often heard it as FA(as in fabulous)-row, too.

I can think of two pronunciations (British and US) which differ in the vowel of the first syllable: /eɪ/ as in fate and /æ/ as in fat. Stress on the first syllable. Whether the r belongs at the end of the first syllable or the beginning of the second one is another question.

We say Fhà-rah-oh. (maybe a Dutch publisher?) ;~)

Yes, I learned this word as fair-owe, although I have run into the pronunciation fay-row throughout the years. Grew up in NE US.

Fair-o for me, though that's undoubtedly my Australian familial name abreviation ism coming to the fore.

Yes, I learned this word as fair-owe Thanks, and welcome aBoard.
Psst--love your name!

Thanks, Jackie. It combines two of my great loves: playing trombone, and making a hash of the language.

My kinda guy!

pound that hash, sharply!

It's already hash, we just re-hash, and have orts.