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From: riddle@im4u.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: Kennedy's use of German language
Message-ID: <353@im4u.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 26-Jul-85 18:53:23 EDT
Article-I.D.: im4u.353
Posted: Fri Jul 26 18:53:23 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 27-Jul-85 13:37:57 EDT
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Ein-Wiener: "Bob"

> This falls in the believe it or not category.  In this month's Reader's
> Digest, there is a paragraph describing John Kennedy's "Ich bin ein
> Berliner" statement.  Apparently, he *should* have said "Ich bin
> Berliner".  In fact, the article claims that "Ich bin ein Berliner"
> translates to "I am a jelly doughnut".
> 
> Someone out there must understand enough German to help me understand
> why this is so...I frankly can't see it.

Okay.  First of all, if you looked up "Berliner" in a sufficiently
encyclopedic German-English dictionary, you would find both definitions: "a
person from Berlin" and "a jelly donut."

The difference lies in the use of the article.  There is a rule in German
that you drop the indefinite article before nouns of occupation,
nationality, and the like is simple sentences in the form "<person> is
<noun>".  Thus the sentence "He is a doctor" would translate to "Er ist
Arzt," never "*Er ist ein Arzt."  (Why the rule?  Don't ask.  I'm not sure
there even *is* a "why" for rules like this.)

Following this rule, "Berliner" can't be correctly parsed as a noun of
citizenship in Kennedy's sentence, so it defaults to its second meaning, a
kind of pastry named after the city of Berlin.

(There was a cartoon circulating in Germany a couple of years back which
portrayed Ronald Reagan saying, "Ich bin ein Hamburger!")

--- Prentiss Riddle ("Aprendiz de todo, maestro de nada.")
--- {ihnp4,harvard,seismo,gatech}!ut-sally!riddle   riddle@ut-sally.UUCP
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