We are in the Netherlands on a river cruise.  The boat is registered in Germany.  The crew is mostly Rumanian.  At the bar I ordered a dry martini and it was almost undrinkable.  What went wrong?  The bartender heard dry and saw that the vermouth was dry vermouth so he interpreted dry martini to mean extra vermouth. Exactly the opposite of what I intended.  After some gestured explanations he understood and produced an excellent martini. Life is complicated but fun.