Naked climb
When I was learning Spanish, I used to practice conversation with a Guatemalan refugee. I was trying to ask him about his hobbies and he told me he liked the mountains. I wanted to ask him if he was a real "mountain-climber" ... but at that time I didn't know the expression hacer alpinismo so I thought I would just pronounce the English word "ropes" in a Spanish way, i.e. ropas. As you may have guessed, when I asked him ¿Te gusta escalar montañas? ¿Con ropas o sin ropas?, he looked at me very suspiciously. What I actually asked him was: "Do you like climbing mountains? With clothes or without clothes?"
Editor's note: a rope is una cuerda or una soga.
Sent by: Maureen
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In Southwestern US, la reata was used by cowboys. This became American English lariat, another word for lasso.
While in Argentina my boyfriend bravely went rock climbing. As I looked on they appeared to throw down one of the ropes. I innocently asked how they were going to get down sin ropas - which I now know means 'without clothes'. I found out later they had given up on the Rappel because my boyfriend had said tengo mierda - which isn't 'I'm scared' but 'I have poo'! Two red faces in one day.
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