Even More Pronunciation

I had this discussion with someone at work a few days ago. If you're a programmer, then you've seen the built-in data type char. So how do you pronounce that? I think most people pronounce it one of two ways:

Char as in char broiled. In other words, pronounce it phonetically, which is how I pronounce it.

Car as in automobile. This one kind of annoys me. The thinking is that char is short for character, so you should pronounce the ch as a hard k. But if that's your thinking, then shouldn't you pronounce it like...

Care as in care package. After all, character is pronounced care-acter. But if you're going to go that far, then why not...

Chair? Maybe I'm taking this too far, after all... nobody says chair-acter.

Now then, my mom is really good at English, but if I asked her, then she'd say...

Shar... because her name is Charlotte which is pronounced Sharlotte, and her nickname is Char (pronounced Shar).

Isn't it funny how such a simple topic can take on a life of its own?