Well I just popped into Frankfurt, and as per normal had a good furtle round the bookshop there. I like to see what new novels have hit the shelves, and I always look to see if there are any new books in the English section.
I picked up a couple of interesting new books and was quite impressed at their quality; "Must add them to my web site" thought I. Then I looked at another book, it was all about the vocabulary you would need when eating out, I opened it to a random page and there found that if you want to eat the equivalent to German Innereien you would order a plate of pluck, or maybe a bowl of pluck, or a cup of pluck for all I know. "What the hell is pluck?," thought I. In order to find out I looked up Innereien in a German-English dictionary. Lo and behold there it is - offal or tripe. Now in gastronomical terminology you may find 'pluck' to mean the lights, the liver and the heart, but you would never find it on the menu of a restaurant, whereas tripe, although thankfully not common, may be found.
So, lots of unsuspecting Germans (and I suspect other nationalities as this book supposedly covers 5 international languages) are going to be happily sitting in restaurants asking for a bowl of pluck. If by any chance you are a waiter at least you now know what they mean.
It wouldn't worry me so much but a few years ago my husband bought me a business English book, Business English from A-Z, it happily announced, supposedly it was to help me with my German. There was a whole section on 'Cheques and Means of Payment' and under H for Honour (honest) there was this classic phrase - The bank will not honour a stale cheque. Well I don't blame them, I don't like stale bread either (bread being a slang word for money).
For goodness sake! How much money do these people make? I suggest that the writers of such pluck at least ask a native speaker to check the translations in the future.