# How do you pronounce Santa Claus? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 10, 2010, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-santa-claus/531945 "2010-03-10T03:54:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![nivlac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/3bc359/32.png) [@nivlac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nivlac)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2010, 9:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-santa-claus/531945/21 "2010-03-11T09:14:26Z")
Kind of an inane poll since it’s always pronounced san-tuh klawz in standard usage. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2010, 10:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-santa-claus/531945/22 "2010-03-11T10:17:35Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > I thought that’s what this was going to be between–Claws vs. Klowss. See post #15. The OP is more interested in whether the last sound is /s/ or /z/. The vowel is irrelevant. ---
**Author:** ![EvilTOJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee59a6/32.png) [@EvilTOJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EvilTOJ)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2010, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-santa-claus/531945/23 "2010-03-11T14:27:57Z")
What’s the difference between a feline foot and a complex sentence? One has claws at the end of its paws, and one has a pause at the end of its clause. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2010, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-santa-claus/531945/24 "2010-03-11T19:34:14Z")
[I Am Santa Claus!](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OFfnWvoOb0) ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2010, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-santa-claus/531945/25 "2010-03-11T22:38:11Z")
> [@Runs\_With\_Scissors](#): > > And the aw in paws . . . sound like “ah” to me 🙂 Really? You would rhyme “paws” with “Oz”? Where are you from? I’ve never heard that before. And I totally don’t get how some people are putting a “y” at the end of “Santa.” ---
**Author:** ![MacTech](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c0e974/32.png) [@MacTech](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MacTech)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2010, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-santa-claus/531945/26 "2010-03-12T00:37:01Z")
Aren’t you talking about the Hogfather? ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2010, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-santa-claus/531945/27 "2010-03-12T03:01:59Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > Really? You would rhyme “paws” with “Oz”? Where are you from? I’ve never heard that before. Really? Surely that’s quite common across America. Isn’t that just an instance of the caught-cot merger? > [@](#): > > And I totally don’t get how some people are putting a “y” at the end of “Santa.” Yeah! Don’t they know there ain’t no Sanity Clause? ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2010, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-santa-claus/531945/28 "2010-03-12T03:16:32Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > Really? You would rhyme “paws” with “Oz”? Where are you from? I’ve never heard that before." Cot/caught merger is common in American accents. > [@panache45](#): > > And I totally don’t get how some people are putting a “y” at the end of “Santa.” It’s and old timey thing, like “Sa-ur-Dee” for Saturday. ---
**Author:** ![Runs\_With\_Scissors](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/278dde/32.png) [@Runs\_With\_Scissors](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Runs_With_Scissors)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2010, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-santa-claus/531945/29 "2010-03-12T03:31:20Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > Really? You would rhyme “paws” with “Oz”? Where are you from? I’ve never heard that before. Yeah, they’re a perfect rhyme for me. How do you pronounce each? ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2010, 6:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-santa-claus/531945/30 "2010-03-12T06:54:19Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > Really? You would rhyme “paws” with “Oz”? Where are you from? I would. There was a giant [creature](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procoptodon) from Oz who had long hooked claws… ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2010, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-santa-claus/531945/31 "2010-03-12T12:54:23Z")
Another fun pronunciation poll would be to determine the syllable breaks: Sant-a vs. San-ta Print-er vs. Prin-ter Wint-er vs. Win-ter etc. I suspect you’d find some nice regionalisms there. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2010, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-santa-claus/531945/32 "2010-03-12T15:19:53Z")
> [@](#): > > Claus rhymes with paws as if it were klahz > Claus rhymes with floss as if it were klahss 😕 but paws would not rhyme with “klahz”. “poz” would rhyme with “klahz” but “paws” would rhyme with “saws” instead. and floss would not rhyme with “klahss”. “kloss” would rhyme with floss, as would the “las” in Las Vegas, but “floss” would rhyme with “boss” and “loss” instead. ---
**Author:** ![Bloody\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac8455/32.png) [@Bloody\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bloody_L)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2010, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-santa-claus/531945/33 "2010-03-12T17:47:43Z")
Claws like a cat, meow. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2010, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-santa-claus/531945/34 "2010-03-13T03:05:25Z")
> [@Indistinguishable](#): > > You interpret “klahz” and “klahss” as having different vowels? Interesting. What would be examples of real words illustrating the contrast in your accent? Oo, this is complicated. Well, the “true” [a] doesn’t occur in my usual speech. It only comes out when I’m imitating a New England accent (“car park”) or trying to speak French. I do have the centralized verson [ä] but the only English word I can think of that it occurs for me as a pure vowel is “father.” It also comes in my _r_-colored _ah_s, like “start the car.” I use it a lot more when speaking Bengali or German. To me “klahss” looked like an approximation of a German word, so that’s why it got this vowel. My back vowel isn’t always a pure [ɑ] - it’s slightly rounded for me, so I think of it as [ɒ] - as in “bother.” Sometimes it’s less rounded, like in “the blahs,” so that’s what “klahz” looked like to me. My [ɔ] is pretty close to my [ɒ], certainly not as high and rounded as “caught” is in Received Pronunciation. “Cot” and “caught” feel different in my mouth, but I suspect a lot of people listening to me will hear them as merged in my accent. This is also probably another influence of Bengali on my southern Ohio accent, because it has [ä], [ɔ]/[ɒ], and [o] as distinct phonemes. I call it [ɔ]/[ɒ], because it’s somewhere between the two and it maps to both English vowels when a Bengali speaker speaks English. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-santa-claus/531945.md?page=1)