In preparation for the Earth Summit, the UN conducted a world-wide survey. The only question in the survey went like this:

“In your honest opinion, how can the food shortage problem be solved in the rest of the world?”

The survey was a huge failure because of the language differences between the various nations:

In Africa, they didn’t know what “food” meant.
In Eastern Europe, they didn’t know what “honest” meant.
In Western Europe, they didn’t know what “shortage” meant.
In China, they didn’t know what “opinion” meant.
In the Middle East, they didn’t know what “solved” meant.
And in the USA they didn’t know what “rest of the world” meant!

🙂