RussellMc wrote: >> I have believed that Kennedy called himself a Donut in Berlin (False) > > Pass. If I remember right, Kennedy said "... ich bin ein Berliner.". This literally translated word for word means "I am a Berliner". He was basically trying to show sympathy for the people of Berlin by sortof saying he (in fact all free people of the world) was in a way a citizen of Berlin too. Of he course couldn't resist trying to do it in a one-liner destined to get a lot of applause, especially since it's the only thing he said in front of the large crowd that was actually in their own language. If you read the paragraph immediately preceeding this statement, you will see it was a long convoluted lead up to provide a excuse for uttering the above words. Kennedy was a good orator, and he pulled it off well enough and got the desired response. Now for the supposed alternate interpretation. It is legitimate in german to use the word "Berliner" to refer to someone from Berlin. This is no different than us saying "New Yorker" to describe someone from New York. There is however a different word spelled and pronounce the same which mean= s a type of pastry. Often in Europe special foods that originated in a particular location take on the name of the location in some form. There are many examples of this, like Cheddar cheese, Bordaux wine, Wiener Schnitzel. Sometimes these are shortened more. Even in today's english the terms "wiener" and "hamburger" have clear meanings in the context of food. The german word "Berliner" (nouns are always capatilized in german) is no different, and happens to mean a particular type of pastry that presumably originated in Berlin a lon= g time ago. Ironically, it's sortof kinda like what we call a "Danish" here. So what did Kennedy actually say? The alternate interpretation claim is that since he said "ein Berliner" (a Berliner) as apposed to dropping the "ein", that specified the pastry as apposed to a person from Berlin. Sayin= g "ich bin Berliner" is valid in german and removes the possibility that Berliner can be interpreted as the pastry, but frankly this alternate claim is just a bunch of rubbish. Syntactially, "ich bin ein Berliner" is ambiguous, but taken in context is completely unambiguous. I have even heard the claim that the large respons= e from the crowd was laughing at the president of the United States proclaiming he was something you eat for breakfast, but that is complete nonsense. Everyone there at the time undestood clearly what Kennedy meant, and yes, I have actually talked to native german speakers who heard the speach live. I never actually asked them about the pastry thing because at the time I wasn't aware of this absurd interpretation. However, the strong sense I got from everyone of these people has been gratitude for the public solidarity the US showed with the people of Berlin at a difficult time. No= t one of them mentioned anything about laughing at Kennedy or thinking he mad= e a fool of himself. Many years later Ronald Reagan came to the Berlin wall and said largely the same thing, obviously trying to get the same favorable reaction Kennedy did= .. If Kennedy had in fact made a fool of himself and the people of Berlin had actually laughed at him instead of applauded him, I rather doubt Reagan would have repeated the mistake something like 25(?) years later. So in a nutshell, this pastry thing is just a load of crap. ******************************************************************** Embed Inc, Littleton Massachusetts, http://www.embedinc.com/products (978) 742-9014. Gold level PIC consultants since 2000. --=20 http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist .