A man, a plan, a...?

Chinese Lesson #3186

When talking about the man-made waterway that extends from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean through the nation of Panama, do not call it the 巴拿馬水溝 [bānámǎ shuǐgōu]. Even though the man-made waterway next to your house is clearly a CANAL, and EVERYBODY calls it a [shuǐgōu] and therefore it's TOTALLY LOGICAL to call the Panama Canal the bānámǎ shuǐgōu and it is CERTAINLY not something that someone should get laughed at for just because SOME people have the LUXURY of learning Chinese as their first language and others have to TRY SO HARD and we still might make mistakes once in a while and it's really not a topic that needs to be brought up or smirked about EVER AGAIN now is it Honey?

運河 [yùnhé]. Got it. "Canal" is different than "ditch".