Mythbusting

[oloriel]

*sighs*

Ok. Let me bust this particular one just now. aervir will know why. ;)

Ich bin ein Berliner -

Now there was this smart-ass American (this isn't against Americans in general. Generally, I like Americans.* She or he was from the USA, that's all) pointing out that what Kennedy said was actually, "I am a doughnut".
Because, supposedly, "Ich bin Berliner" means "I am a person from Berlin", whereas "Ich bin ein Berliner" means "I am a Berliner", which is a sort of doughnut filled with jam.

No.
Both these sentences can mean "I am a person from Berlin." The connotations are minimally different, but more in the "I am from Berlin" vs. "Well, what can you do, I'm a person from Berlin after all" kind of sense, not in the doughnut sense.

Even though "Ich bin ein Berliner" can also mean "I am a jam-filled doughnut" in parts of Germany, in Berlin itself, it wouldn't. Because in Eastern Germany - which includes Berlin - the "Berliner" kind of doughnut isn't called Berliner (much as the kind of sausage known as "Wiener" and "Frankfurter" isn't called "Wiener" in Vienna, nor "Frankfurter" in Frankfurt). In Eastern Germany, the "Berliner" kind of doughnut is known as "Pfannkuchen" (yes, the word the rest of the republic would use for pancakes. Pancakes, on the other hand, are "Eierkuchen". Correct me if I got this wrong, eliathanis.). The sentence "Ich bin ein Berliner", therefore, would in Berlin itself be understood just as Kennedy meant it, without any doughnut implications. - It wouldn't have these implications in the South, either. In the South, "Berliner" doughnuts are "Kräppel" or "Krapfen". Confused? Yes, Germany may be a small country, but we have a lot of language variety nonetheless.

I still don't know what that has to do with the Glorious 25th, but of course, I shouldn't expect logical thinking from self-righteous people who can't see a celebration of humour for what it is.

Also, I know how silly it is to get hung up on this. But if there's one thing that annoys me it's people who picked up something semi-true somewhere at some time spouting said semi-truths as some sort of big revelation.

*Of course I could now crack jokes about how "Amerikaner", American, is also a name for a sort of doughnut-dough flat bread glazed with sugar in Germany, but - nah.

Comments

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Good question, really. It happens with special stuff that is generally linked to one place. However, there are just as many local specialties that don't have any place names - such as Printen (from Aachen) or Brezeln (from Swabia) - or those that have a combination of place-name and food-name (Lübecker Marzipan, Burger Zwieback, etc). In fact, the latter are the most common. So I guess it's not a general tendency. It just sometimes happens that the food-name disappears over time (as in the case of the Berliner Pfannkuchen which ended up being a Berliner in the middle pf the country, or the Frankfurter/ Wiener Würstchen where everybody will know what you mean if you just order a Frankfurter in a bun).

I think it doesn't happen all that much more than it happens in other countries, really. And we don't drink Java. Not ever. Not even if the coffee actually comes from Java. ;)