"You're saying it wrong"
RSole's story of the binoculars below reminded me of my old mate Paul Groves. When we were young he was obsessed with vampires, and Dracula in particular. Problem was, for some reason he was unable to pronounce "Dracula", rendering it "Draclear".

This annoyed my 9 year old self rather a lot, so I decided to train him in the proper way to say it. I still remember the first training session, sitting on the floor in front of the television surrounded by video cassettes:

"Shall we put Draclear on?"
"It's not 'Draclear', it's 'Dracula'"
"Draclear?"
"Dracula."
"... Draclear?"
"Dracul - look, say after me: Drac"
"Drac"
"Yooo"
"Yooo"
"Laaa"
"Laaa"
"Dracula!"
"Draclear!"
"NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! Listen: Drac"
"Drac"
"Yooo"
"Yooo"
"Laaa"
"Laaa"
"Drac-U-Laaa, see?"
And Paul, brow furrowed with effort and, I suspect, confusion, managed
"Drac-U-Laaaaa!"

Result!

Except, he never really quite got a handle on it, and from then on when approaching the word "Dracula" in conversation (as you do when you're nine), he would pause briefly then carefully enunciate "Drac-U-Laaaaa"

In short order this transferred to family folklore and thus regular usage, with "Draclear" and "Drac-U-Laaaaa" being used interchangably. As ever with this sort of thing, you tend to forget when outside the family and get funny looks as people decide whether to correct you or not. I've occasionally wondered since whether that's how Paul got started on the whole thing in the first place.
(richardm, Fri 21 Nov 2008, 16:05, 2 replies)

Cheers
you bastard. Now I won't be able to say Dracula properly either.
(Rsoles, Fri 21 Nov 2008, 17:49, closed)

Correct pronunciation
I HATE mispronounced words, except for

Draclear (Dracula)

Skellingtons (Skeletons)

Nooculer (Nuclear)

These words should always be mispronounced.
(kitescreech still here, Wed 26 Nov 2008, 16:59, closed)