Robert Perkins wrote:

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.

True, but other situations where the article will appear is for emphasis
and when the term is not meant literally. For example, if I were a
politician, I would identify myself saying "Ich bin Politiker" but if
someone felt that I was acting in a politically motivated way they might
well say "Da bisst du ja ein Politiker." The latter phrase could be
translated as "You're acting like a politician." In Kennedy's case, either
of these could be justification for the inclusion of the article since he
was both emphasizing the unique nature of Berliners at the time and he
certainly wasn't speaking literally.

In any event, the phrasing is clearly not due to Kennedy directly but to
Robert Lochner, his interpreter who was educated in Berlin. And Kennedy
rehearsed the line with Willy Brandt (then Berlin mayor) just prior to his
speech. Apparently Willy saw nothing wrong with the phrasing. See:
http://clk.about.com/?zi=1/XJ&sdn=urbanlegends&zu=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.geocities. com%2F%7Enewgeneration%2Fberliner.htm