Seriously? I mean, don’t get me wrong – pork has many, many fine uses, both industrially and around the house. But rhyming with “quark” simply isn’t one of them.
I don’t know why, but I’ve always pronounced it (at least mentally) to rhyme with “pork.” I first encountered it in studying physics, but in recent years I’ve encountered it far more often in relation to graphic design.
Physics: to rhyme with park.
Graphic design in Ireland: to rhyme with pork.
Graphic design in UK: to rhyme with park.
Yoghurt-type product: to rhyme with pork.
You have that in English? Interesting. I remember English speakers who didn’t know a good translation for German “Quark” (rhymes with “park”) but perhaps they were Americans.
I have watched “Trading Spouses” exactly twice, and both times it was the same episode, with a kind of laid-back, New Age mother trading places with fundamentalist Christian virago. Towards the end of the show, she launches into a complete foam-flecked tirade about the other family, condemning them all for being from the “dork side.” It took me a couple of minutes to figure out she was saying “dark side.” I don’t know if that’s regional pronunciation or not. I can’t remember where she was from.
I suspect people tend to rhyme “quark” with “pork” because of familiarity with other words beginning with “quar-” such as “quart,” “quarry,” “quarter,” “quarrel,” in which the “a” tends to be pronounced as in “war.”