Two Linguistic Traps That Can Make You Look Ridiculous

There are two quirks of language that can trick you into saying some pretty silly things if you aren't aware of them, especially in regard to translation and ancient languages like Hebrew and Greek.

1. False Cognates. A false cognate is a word that sounds or looks so much like another word that you assume they must have the same origin (aka "etymology") and probably mean the same thing at some level. Don't fall for it! Many, many words sound or look like completely unrelated words. Before you say "This word in English (or Greek, Latin, German, etc.) is derived from that word in Hebrew (or Greek, Latin, Egyptian, etc.)" because they resemble each other, make sure that it's actually true. Languages all over the world have very similar sounding words that don't actually have any connection to each other at all. A few minutes of searching the Web can save you hours of fighting over a hill you never should have climbed in the first place. 

2. False Friends. A false friend is very similar to a false cognate, but can involve words that really do have the same origins. However, words evolve over time and the exact same word (or closely related words) might have totally different meanings in different contexts. One of the most obvious examples in modern English is the word "gay". The word once meant one thing, but was coopted to mean something else entirely. When a person uses that word, you need to know the context before you can know what meaning they intend.