That's hilarious. I had a customer in a computer store (decades ago) ask if I knew where to find Juarez. Given we were in Houston, it wasn't an unreasonable question so I asked, "Juarez...Mexico?"

"No, like wah-rez...the illegal software downloads."

"Oh...right. N-no." Setting aside that I'm not into giving out professional "how to break the law" advice, I was just completely baffled. I figured "warez" came from "softwares" that were being distributed. Never crossed my mind to pronounce it phonetically.