Yesterday at dinner we were talking about false friends, words in different languages that sound the same but mean different things (there are plenty of examples between portuguese and spanish). This reminded me of a story a colleague told a couple of years ago. When she was in London she had a cold, and the portuguese word for a woman with a cold is constipada. So she went to the pharmacy and said she was constipated which seemed to be a good enough word. She could tell she was not getting what she needed because there was a picture of a bowel on the box of medicine the pharmacist gave her 
She proceeded to mimic sneezes and a runny nose, and thisfixed the misunderstanding
She proceeded to mimic sneezes and a runny nose, and thisfixed the misunderstanding
