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November 2004, Week 3

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Subject:
Re: OT: Here is one for Mr Baier
From:
"Gribbin, Francis J." <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Gribbin, Francis J.
Date:
Fri, 19 Nov 2004 13:21:30 -0500
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I believe the article is dropped when referring to oneself as "an inhabitant of".  
So  "Ich bin Berliner."  would have worked.  

Adding to the confusion, three good friends of mine are Berliner, Hamburger and Frankfurter.
...  and no they're not fat !

Regards,

Frank Gribbin
Potter Anderson & Corroon LLP
 

-----Original Message-----
From: HP-3000 Systems Discussion [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On
Behalf Of Dave Oksner
Sent: Friday, November 19, 2004 1:03 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [HP3000-L] OT: Here is one for Mr Baier


Oddly enough, I had a friend explain this to me just last week.  Her
explanation was that problem is not one of literal translation but of
a sort of "botched grammar."  To say what he wanted to say, he should not
have used the noun identifier 'ein' (the 'a' in the English translation).
What he said is a perfectly valid sentence, but if a native speaker had
said it, it would have been understood to be a type of donut.

Of course, I'd defer to an actual native German speaker, should they decide
to weigh in.  This IS second-hand information.  :-)

Dave

On Fri, Nov 19, 2004 at 09:35:25AM -0800, Newton, Ernie wrote:
> I've always been a big JFK fan. It was the first political
> convention and election I watched, at age 7, and then my first
> assassination and presidential burial, at age 10.
>
> I've never understood why what he said translated into a jelly donut.
>
> When I use my favorite online translator...
>
> http://translation2.paralink.com/
>
> ...and put in Kennedy's quote, it translates into
> "I am a Berliner".
>
> When I put in "I am a jelly doughnut", it returns,
> "ich bin ein Gelee-Krapfen".
>
> So what gives??
>
> Ernie
>

--
+---------------David Oksner-----http://www.case.net/---------------+
|If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.|
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