Most understood words in the world

[Hemingway]

I was thinking the other day about what are the top ten most understood words on the planet. words that work across languages. Here are some I came up with feel free to add some or comment.

the good ones that I think make the top 10 easy:
ok
bye (or bye bye)
Ma (or Mama)

maybe these ones:
cola (or coca cola)
BBQ
Sofa (its the same in english and chinese and I would guess some middle eastern languages)
Salad (same in english and chinese)


Which words am I missing?

[PhoSita]

the words that babies use for their mother and father are very similar across languages because babies learn certain sounds first.  that's probably your starting point.

[Eja117]

dollar

[fairweatherfan]

Words with onomatopoeia - words that mimic the sound they're describing.  Boom, pow, thud, etc.

[Hemingway]

Pho makes a good point about words for Mom. Thats why I put Ma. Most places I have been use Ma and Ma is understood in America even if Mommy or Mom is more popular.

as for the onomatopoeia that really changes culture to culture. (and those aren't really words) for example you would think everywhere would say the frog says "ribbet" but in Thailand the frog says "guap"

How about "Game Over"? its on every video game and a lot of places play video games in English.

I got to thinking about this because I live in China now so really any word you think of has to beat 25+% as at least 25% of the world knows easy mandarin chinese words. No one here knows dollar if they don't already know english. 

[Lucky17]

Jazz
Rock and roll
Cool

[GC003332]

With the way computer technology has taken off around the world, wifi, @, www have got be understood in a great % of places now, I know it is not a word but the sound a horn makes in traffic is understood, also the raised middle finger gets attention most places.

[wdleehi]

No