On Sat, 15 Nov 2003 18:42:03 GMT, Philip Sondericker
wrote:

Berliner refers to a resident
of Berlin, just as a Hamburger is a denizen of Hamburg and a Frankfurter
resides in Frankfurt. Generally, these words are only funny to non-Germans
who haven't the slightest idea what they're talking about.

Germans simply don't form the sentence that way. The article "ein" is
superfluous in the context of identifying with a group.

Ich bin Sizilianerin.
Er ist Schweizer.
Sie sind Oesterreicher.

That's conversational German. Using the indefinite article would just
never come up in a spoken conversation, and I have participated in a
*lot* of German conversations.

You might hear the *definite* article from time to time, but it will
almost always come with a name, in the case of self-identification.

"Ich bin der Berliner, John Kennedy", and so forth.

(In the case of third person pejorative references you might not get a
name. "Er ist der Schwule da drueben," and so forth.)

Hearing "Ich bin ein Schweizer" or anything like that is akin to
hearing a non English speaker say "I go today to get milk at store."
The English speaker would use gerunds.

Rob, who knows what he's talking about

--
[You] don't make your kids P.C.-proof by keeping them
ignorant, you do it by helping them learn how to
educate themselves.

-- Orson Scott Card