Shutting up the Table Coach

[CrisBrown]

Hi Fred,

Actually, Internet wonkitude notwithstanding, the correct German sentence for JFK would have been "Ich bin Berliner" ("I am a Berliner"). It was no different from what Gerhard Shröder said on 9/11/2001: "Today, we are all Americans."

"Ich bin ein Berliner" does not mean "I am one with the people of Berlin." It was a misstatement. That's fine. JFK wasn't a German-speaker, and he was relying on what speechwriters and language coaches had told him. Everyone knew what he meant by it, and they heard what he meant and not what he said.

Don't believe everything you read on urban legend websites. Some of what you read there is every bit as much "urban legend" as the urban legends they purport to debunk.

Cris

[Fred Garvin]

[ QUOTE ]
Actually, Internet wonkitude notwithstanding, the correct German sentence for JFK would have been "Ich bin Berliner" ("I am a Berliner"). It was no different from what Gerhard Shröder said on 9/11/2001: "Today, we are all Americans."

"Ich bin ein Berliner" does not mean "I am one with the people of Berlin." It was a misstatement. That's fine. JFK wasn't a German-speaker, and he was relying on what speechwriters and language coaches had told him. Everyone knew what he meant by it, and they heard what he meant and not what he said.

Don't believe everything you read on urban legend websites. Some of what you read there is every bit as much "urban legend" as the urban legends they purport to debunk.

[/ QUOTE ]

Do you speak German or just pretend to on the internet?

This moronicism has been treated in a scholarly journal: J. Eichhoff, "'Ich bin ein Berliner': A History and a linguistic Clarification," _Monatshefte_, Vol. 85, No. 1, 1993, pp. 71-80. It's fraudulent roots are apparently from a _Newsweek_ article, January 18, 1988, p. 15.

Your argument is a gone-wrong counterfactual based on ignorance. "Ich bin Berliner," literally means, "I am from Berlin." "I am a Berliner, too" -- would capture the spirit hoped for in English, but German works differently, and in German "Ich bin ein Berliner" is appropriate. Does the phrase mean, "I am a jelly donut?" -- Well, only to those willfully misinterpreting it -- a group that boasts you as victim and apologist. For presumably cheap political points, people worked backward from a willful misrepresentation, and found a linguistic explanation for a non-existent confusion.

So I have a scholarly source. You have a misguided analogy to the English language, amusing on many levels.

To the posters that question my antagonism I can only say: it seems appropriate when dealing with someone so adamantly and persistently foolish.

PS In Berlin, the pasty in question is "Pfannkuchen."

(BTW, I'm not a fan of JFK. I'm just tired of this specific slice of stupidity.)

[CrisBrown]

Fred,

Yes, as a matter of fact, I do speak German. As for the fallacious statement that this misinterpretation dates to a Newsweek article from 1988, that is simply absurd. My best friend is German-born and has lived there all her life, and was fortunate enough to hear the original speech on the radio. She and her family giggled for a moment -- recognizing the obvious misstatement -- even as their hearts were lifted by his words. She certainly didn't read any 1988 Newsweek articles, and I'll put her experience over some anonymous internet troll any and every day of the week.

Cris

[Fred Garvin]

Anonymous Troll? I posted a scholarly citation. You wave your hands in the classic fashion of the urban myth.

The body rejected the organ...

[jedi]

[ QUOTE ]

Do you speak German or just pretend to on the internet?


[/ QUOTE ]

I don't speak German, but my math teacher in high school is German (and from Germany), and he related the story to us in class and why JFK misspoke. I'll trust him over anyone else here.

[Fred Garvin]

The beauty of scholarly research is that you don't have to trust internet posters or your high school math teacher.

[Bremen]

[ QUOTE ]
The beauty of scholarly research is that you don't have to trust internet posters or your high school math teacher.

[/ QUOTE ] You have to trust the person who did the research. Who is quite likely just as failable as any other source. Unfortunately I don't have access to the article in question, or a high school teacher <G>

[shemp]

[ QUOTE ]
You have to trust the person who did the research. Who is quite likely just as failable as any other source.

[/ QUOTE ]

Incorrect. A specialist on technical questions pertinent to his technical field is certainly less fallible than someone without training. Secondly, it doesn't all come down to faith in that person, as prior to and post publication there is the scrutiny of his peers, and, finally, the test of time.

[jedi]

[ QUOTE ]
The beauty of scholarly research is that you don't have to trust internet posters or your high school math teacher.

[/ QUOTE ]

Should I trust research, or a native speaker in this?

[shemp]

You can do as you please. I'm not interested in telling you what you should do. If it is true that a jelly donut is or was not called a Berliner in Berlin, then you might want your native speaker to be a Berliner?