Too bad he didn't make the speech in Hamburg, Frankfurt or Vienna -- he
would have been a Hamburger, a Frankfurter or a Wiener!  ("Vienna" in
German is "Wien.")  If memory serves, proper form would be to omit the
article when referring to one's place of origin ("Ich bin Berliner.")

>>> Denys Beauchemin <[log in to unmask]> 03/11/98 12:38pm >>>
Gentle HP 3000 List members,

Some time back, perhaps over a year ago, there was a short thread
about the
dangers of translating things from one language to another.

At that time, I jumped in with both feet, (some would even say, stuck in
my
mouth), and recounted the incident I thought to be amongst the funniest,
to
wit, the 1963 speech by John F. Kennedy when the Berlin wall went up.
At
the conclusion of his speech, Kennedy said "Ich bin ein Berliner,", which
to Germans meant "I am a jelly doughnut," as well as "I am a Berliner."
 (Clinton, in 1998, would say "I feel your pain.")

Someone took exception to this and said it was not true.  Well, not being
one to forget such challenges, I traveled to Germany recently, for the
express purpose of proving my point (not!) and had occasion to take
some
pictures which I want to share with you.

I invite you to come visit www.hicomp.com/pictures/berliner.jpg. There
you
will download two pictures, scanned in one JPEG file.  The first picture
shows a van in the parking lot of a small shopping center in Hamburg.
This
van is there all the time and in the morning is frequented by all sorts of
people who buy goodies to eat in the morning.  Amongst these backed
goodies, one finds, (drum roll please,) a Berliner, as advertised on the
side of the van

The second picture shows a sign which stands to the right of the van
(as
seen in the first picture) and squarely in the entrance to the shopping
center.  In other words, you would have to be totally blind to miss it.  On
the sign, we see advertised a Berliner (no explanation given, or needed)
at
DM1.40 per piece (stuck), and another delicacy filled either with Apple,
Cherry, Vanilla or Marzipan at DM1.60 each.

Notice the two doughnuts at the top of the sign.  The one on the left is
saying that famous phrase, "Ich bin ein Berliner," while the other one
says
something with butter.

The JPEG is rather large at a half meg, but I wanted you to have the full
flavor, so to speak, of these pictures.

BTW, I bought a Berliner so that I could photograph it.  I decided to taste
first to see if it was worthy of a picture.  It was, but then I did not
have a Berliner to take a picture of.  You can't have your Berliner and eat
it too.  And if indeed, you are what you eat, I guess Ich bin ein Berliner
also.

It was very good, but it is not unique to Germany.  I have seen similar
offerings at local bakeries in Houston and other places.  However, be
warned.  It is only good when it is freshly made, because akin to other
fast foods, the flavor exits the item after a short while.

See you next week at IPROF.

Kind regards,

Denys. . .

Denys Beauchemin
HICOMP America, Inc.
(800) 323-8863  (281) 288-7438         Fax: (281) 355-6879
denys at hicomp.com                             www.hicomp.com