How do you pronounce char?

I was reminded again how much the mispronouncing of char bothers me.  I was at an AP Workshop this weekend and one of the presenters consistently makes this mistake.

I maintain that if you pronounce it as it is spelled — ‘char’ as in burned — you don’t get the concept and neither will your students. 

char is short for character.  It should be pronounced as an abbreviation for character, thus pronounced ‘care’, not ‘char’. 

It’s like int for integer.

It automatically turns me off the speaker, because they just don’t get the concept.