Spoken language can be especially ripe-for misundersandings. This is why this discusison-thread was placed in the 'Social Skills and Making Friends Forum.'
The 2020 Book: 'Single-Context Words: A Study of a Quirk of the English Language' (LINK) takes a light-hearted look at the quirks of the English language - even though misunderstandings are all too often anything but....light-hearted.
LINK: https://books.google.com/books/about/Si ... oCEAAAQBAJ