Mini Hungarian language lesson: imagine.

So, there is this little word: "kép". Pronounced as "cape", it simply means "image". Originally meaning "form" or "shape", it probably came from Old Turkish and in itself is pretty unremarkable.

But it's a fertile little word, producing compounds like "képregény" ("image novel", i.e. comic) "fénykép" ("light image", i.e. photograph), "térkép" ("spatial image", i.e. map) and "vérkép" ("blood image", i.e. blood test).

And you really don't want those last two mixed up.

It also spread in different ways, some more predictable than others. One fairly obvious alternative meaning it acquired over the centuries was "visage" or, less pretentiously, "face".

So "képen törölni" ("to wipe someone on the face") is to give someone a slap.

And if someone has "skin on the face" ("van bőr a képén"), it means they have a brass neck.

A weirder possible offshoot of this meaning is "képviselő" (lit. "face-wearer"), which is not something out of some weird horror movie but is a member of parliament.

So maybe it is something out of some weird horror movie.

(Technically the word only means "representative" but on its own it really does informally mean an MP.)

On the plus side though, there is a tasty sweet called "képviselőfánk", and let's hope no menu translates it as "face-wearer doughnut".

Anyway, there is a less obvious meaning to the word too, and that is "way" or "capability" (no relation, despite the similarity in how the words are pronounced), causing a certain amount of ambiguity.

So "képes" can mean both "pictorial" or "capable", on the other hand "képtelen" does not mean "lacking in pictures", only "incapable" or indeed "implausible".

And sometimes it is spelled with two p-s, just to really throw you off.

And for maximum confusion, let's consider "másképp" ("otherwise"), which is absolutely not interchangeable with "képmás" (an image of someone, as in a portrait for example).

So it goes.