If we’re looking at
NAOW as if it were an ordinary English spelling, most English speakers would probably read it like the phrase
“now”—the same vowel sound as in
cow or
how.
Here’s why:
- AO inside a word in English often ends up sounding like the ow in cow (think of playful spellings like “naow” people use online to exaggerate “now”).
- The final W reinforces that diphthong ending.
So a good real-word comparison is:
NAOW → sounds like
“now” (rhymes with
cow,
how,
plow).