Auction. How is it pronounced?

[Joe_the_Lion]

I talk fairly well, but not posh and I say auction like ORK-SHUN.

I have heard many say, usually on TV shows say OK-SHUN.

I can not make sense of phoentics so is there anybody out there who knows the definitive answer. ORK or OK SHUN.

[Octavius]

It comes from the latin augere which leads to auctus / aucta / auctum, (not Octus / Octa / Octum) so I would guess you would pronounce it similar to Augustus, as in AwKshun. Although various web links infer that it is okshun.

A matter of preference I guess as I don�t have the OED to hand.

[crete]

s a l e

[jno]

my OECD says AWK, I say OCK

[Quizmonster]

TOED says the 'au' here is pronounced in the same way as the 'o' in 'born'...which gives, I guess, the same as J's 'awk' or your own 'ork'. (So long as you're not a Scotsman, that is!)

[sophie_1003]

OK-SHUN sounds very american!

[jno]

did I really write OECD? That's the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development, which is not what I meant at all. My OED, I meant to say, gives the same pronunciation as auk (or orc, as long as you don't sound your Rs).

[joko]

i would say ork, but my da says ock

i have wondered a similar thing with almond
- al mond, ol mond, orl mond or as my
mum says or mond...?

[heathfield]

As in AUtumn, Joe. As in AH!-mond, Joko.

[Skreecheeboy]

Why would you pronounce a word that doesn't contain an R with an R in it? Sorry but it's not just us scots that pronounce R's, and my old man's a Sassenach and he doesn't speak like Jonathon Woss.

[Quizmonster]

Just think of "It's a braw, bricht moonlicht nicht the nicht," Skreecheeboy, as pronounced by the traditional stage-Scotsman.
Of course, there is no letter 'r' in auction, but - if you have a look - the questioner himself suggested the letters 'ork' as a potential opening syllable for 'auction'. I can't answer for anyone else, of course, but that's what I was on about in my earlier answer...ie the typical trilled 'r' of Scots dialect.