"Ich bin ein Berliner"

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"Ich bin ein Berliner"

I cannot believe that in the launch of their new "doughnut" edition, the Grauniad, having garnered so many column inches about their wonderous new Berliner format (shurely, "filled so many column inches of their own disreputable organ..." - ed.) have not yet availed themselves in print of the above quote by the celebrated sexologist and former US president, Jack Kennedy.

Or Hamburg.
According to a web based German to English dictionary I have just consulted the word Berliner also means doughnut in German. "Ich bin ein Berliner", "I am a doughtnut".... Good for you Jack.
Well done Foxy. Read the top post again, carefully.
"Ich bin ein Berliner" ("I am a Berliner") is a famous phrase from a June 26, 1963 speech by U.S. President John F. Kennedy in West Berlin. Kennedy was underlining the support of the United States for democratic West Germany shortly after communist East Germany had erected the Berlin Wall as a deadly barrier to its citizens escaping to the West. The speech is considered one of Kennedy's best, and a notable moment of the Cold War. It was a great morale boost for the West Berliners, who feared absorption into the Soviet empire. Speaking from the balcony of Rathaus Schöneberg, Kennedy said, "Two thousand years ago the proudest boast was civis Romanus sum. Today, in the world of freedom, the proudest boast is 'Ich bin ein Berliner.' All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and, therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words 'Ich bin ein Berliner!'"
A common urban legend falsely asserts that Kennedy made an embarrassing grammatical error by saying "Ich bin ein Berliner," referring to himself not as a citizen of Berlin, but as a common pastry. Berliner is the name given to doughnuts filled with plum sauce or jam in most of Germany, though not in Berlin or the surrounding region, where they are known as Pfannkuchen. According to the legend, Kennedy should have said "Ich bin Berliner" to mean "I am a Berliner (person from Berlin)". By adding the indefinite article ein, it is claimed, his statement implied he was a non-human Berliner, thus "I am a jelly doughnut." In the legend, the statement was followed by uproarious laughter. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ich_bin_ein_Berliner#.22Jelly_doughnut.22_u...
How original.

 

In fact,' Ich bin ein Berline'r does mean 'I am a Berliner-style pastry.' In German one would normally say 'Ich bin aud Berlin' which means I am from Berlin. Or Ich war im Berlin geboren (I was born in Berlin) or Ich wohne im Berlin (I live in Berlin). BTW, in Poland, there is an identical pastry called a paczek. I can't do the POlish alphabet here, but it would be pronounced 'pawn-check' in the singular, but since no one buys just one, they are usually called paczki (pawnch-key).
The truth in this case is somewhat stranger than fiction. Kennedy suffered from severe back pains, the result of injuries sustained when commanding a PT boat in World War 2. This led him to become increasingly reliant on drugs, to the point where he suffered from hallucinations. His most vivid delusion was that he had become a giant Pfannkuchen, and that Marilyn Monoe was licking the sugar off the top. Hence his "Ich bin ein berliner" speech.
Ich bin ein Binliner. But you knew that already.
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