MEP, is what you call a "long a" the sound that IPA represents as /e:/? I want to know, before I look for other words besides "gauge" that use "au" tomspell that sound. (And what's imagined to be particularly "long" about that sound, anyway? The vowel in "gauge" doesn't necessarily last longer than vowel in "Madge" — likewise, the vowel in "bad" lasts noticeably longer than the vowel in "bat," yet both are imagined to be "short.")

I'm also wondering if you pronounce the consonant L in "folk," "talk," and "calf." Doubtless you —like the rest of us — have never bothered about the B in "doubt" and the P in "receipt" ... not to mention the W in "who" and "two." Have you forgotten the C in "indict" and the G in "sign"? Don't forget the N in "autumn," the M that begins "mnemonic," and the B that ends "thumb." (And how do you pronounce ONE, I wonder?)

If writing a U in "aunt" requires pronouncing a U in that word, then what are you doing about the U in "tongue" — pronouncing it, or speaking proper English and thereby violating your own notion that we look at "what is on the paper" in order to decide how a word sounds?

Would you be willing to pronounce each and  every English word — not only "aunt," but all the rest of them — according to "what is on the paper" whenever you speak ... for one month, ror one week, or even for one day? If not, you have no right to command anyone else "to pronounce what is on the paper" when you yourself know better for any word that isn't "aunt."

Re "If the U wasn't to be pronounced, then it wouldn't be in the word" — do you pronounce the K in "knit," the L in "colonel," the P in "pychology," the H in "chorus," and the GH in "through"? If you believes your own argument, you would be pronouncing them: until you follow your own logic, do not ask others to do so. (If it degrades an aunt to pronounce her title as "ant," then it must degrade knitting to pronounce "knit" identically with the larva of a louse.)

A "long A"? To Americans, the term "long vowel" denotess "the sound which is the name of that vowel-letter" e.g., "long A" is the vowel-sound in "ape, May, steak," and so on.

Let Shakespeare settle the issue:

"The lark, that tirra-lira chants —
With hey, with hey, the thrush and the jay —
Are summer songs for me and my aunts
While we lie tumbling in the hay."
— THE WINTER'S TALE, Act IV, Scene iii

Plainly, he rhymed "aunts" with "chants."