July 12, 2005
Better than Berlinner
The Germans have a sense of humor. I think.
JFK. Better than Oliver's Stone's.
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Whah? Better than Oliver Stone's what? And do I have to read all episodes to understand what that one meant? Signed, Clueless in Gaza.
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Welcome, new monkey! The graphics remind me a bite of TinTin. But wot do I know? I am a jelly donut.
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*squishes bees to see what flavor he is*
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*another bee done gone o lordy*
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Mmmm. Jelly donuts.
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Royal jelly of course
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He was wacked out of his head on amphetamines when he made that speech.
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And so was whoever came up with this comic.
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Or maybe he'd just been stung by a bee and fell into a jelly roll.
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I started with the first episode and was enjoying it for a while (I'm a sucker for alternate universes), but it got too silly for me around the time the wife got flushed down the toilet. And the "jelly doughnut" thing is bullshit.
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Knowing several Germans, they each say something different on this matter, languagehat; inscrutability seemingly is one of the factors of the language even for native speakers. Possibly why it, like Russian and English, lends itself well to the weirdness of the poetic arts.
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Kudos, languagehat. Er... the most legitimate source I had to pilfer from beforehand was the Simpsons.
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Knowing several Germans, they each say something different on this matter I would imagine some of them find it mildly amusing, others find it unexceptionable. If anyone seriously has a problem with it, they're probably Kennedy-haters who will use any excuse to attack him. There's no question that "Ich bin ein Berliner" is perfectly good German for "I am a Berliner." The fact that Berliner has another meaning is as irrelevant as the fact that "New Yorker" is a magazine. "Heh heh, he said 'I am a New Yorker,' that means he thinks he's a magazine!" This is on the same level.
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The Hat has spoken! *Gonnnnnnnnngggggg*
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Now now, Hat, you know that Germanic languages are nicht Ihre beste klage. ;)
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Always assumed it was a joke, for that speech was lauded almost endlessly after it was givem. JFK has enough enemies (understament) they would have jumped all over it. Think the jelly donut interpretation surfaced years after he was killed, or as best I recall. Though it's possible it only came to my attention late, as I was in and out of the States a lot back then.