Berliner (pastry) - John F. Kennedy Urban Legend

John F. Kennedy Urban Legend

John F. Kennedy's words "Ich bin ein Berliner" are standard German for I am a Berliner. An urban legend has it that due to his use of the indefinite article ein, Berliner is translated as jelly doughnut, and that the population of Berlin was amused by the supposed mistake. The normal convention when stating a nationality or, for instance, saying one is from Berlin, would be to leave out the indefinite article ein. However, Kennedy used the indefinite article here correctly to emphasize his relation to Berlin. Additionally, the word Berliner is not used in Berlin to refer to the Berliner Pfannkuchen. These are simply called Pfannkuchen there and therefore no one from Berlin would mistake Berliner for a pastry.

Read more about this topic:  Berliner (pastry)

Famous quotes containing the words john f, kennedy, urban and/or legend:

    Look Johnny, Spig just joined the Navy. I’m married to it. I run the mess hall. I swab the deck. I chip the rust. You’re afraid that they’ll kick Spig out of the Navy. I’m afraid that they won’t.
    Frank Fenton, William Wister Haines, co-scenarist, and John Ford. Minne Wead (Maureen O’Hara)

    Where there is no vision, the people perish.
    —Bible: Hebrew Proverbs 29:18.

    President John F. Kennedy quoted this passage on the eve of his assassination in Dallas, Texas. Quoted in Theodore C. Sorenson, Kennedy, epilogue (1965)

    Commercial jazz, soap opera, pulp fiction, comic strips, the movies set the images, mannerisms, standards, and aims of the urban masses. In one way or another, everyone is equal before these cultural machines; like technology itself, the mass media are nearly universal in their incidence and appeal. They are a kind of common denominator, a kind of scheme for pre-scheduled, mass emotions.
    C. Wright Mills (1916–62)

    This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.
    Willis Goldbeck (1900–1979)