True story, and duck related. I was in Basel, Switzerland for a consulting gig a few years back. After eating at a restaurant, I pulled out my English-German dictionary to look up how to ask for the bill. I called the waitress over, and confidently asked, “Kan ich bitter einer schnabel haben?” She laughed. She called another waitress over. I repeated. She also laughed. I guestured for the bill, and she said, “oh, qvittum!”(sorry, my German spelling is bad)…she then gestured and said schnabel, then said ‘quack, quack’ to explain that THAT bill is what’s on the face of a duck.

Major facepalm.