From: utzoo!utcsrgv!utcsstat!ian
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Title: Interlang Homonym
Article-I.D.: utcsstat.273
Posted: Wed Jul 28 22:53:55 1982
Received: Thu Jul 29 08:07:35 1982

A professor of Spanish once described a problem which could occur
when norteamericanos visiting Spanish-speaking countries try to buy `soap' -
they can get sent to a restaurant because the closest word in pronunciation
is `sopa' (pron. sort of like eng `SOAP-ah') which stands not for soap
but for *soup*.
I don't know of anyone to whom it happened, but it's at least possible.
	Ian Darwin
	U of Toronto Computing Services