Friendly_Fire said:
"Ich bin ein berliner"?
That must take the biscuit. Or doughnut.
FF.
wiki:
Urban legend:
According to an urban legend, Kennedy made a slightly embarrassing grammatical error by saying "Ich bin ein Berliner," referring to himself not as a citizen of Berlin, but as a common pastry:
Kennedy should have said "Ich bin Berliner" to mean "I am a person from Berlin." By adding the indefinite article ein, his statement implied he was a non-human Berliner, thus "I am a jelly doughnut".
The legend stems from a play on words with Berliner, the name of a doughnut variant filled with jam or plum sauce that is thought to have originated in Berlin.
In fact, the statement is grammatically correct and cannot be misunderstood in that context. The urban legend is not widely known in Germany, where Kennedy's speech is considered a landmark in the country's postwar history. The indefinite article ein can be and often is omitted when speaking of an individual's profession or residence (ex: "Er ist Soldat" for "He is a soldier") but including it is merely redundant, not ambiguous.
The origins of the legend are obscure. One prominent instance of its re-telling was in 1988 when William J. Miller erroneously wrote in an April 30 New York Times article:
What they did not know, but could easily have found out, was that such citizens never refer to themselves as "Berliners." They reserve that term for a favorite confection often munched at breakfast. So, while they understood and appreciated the sentiments behind the President's impassioned declaration, the residents tittered among themselves when he exclaimed, literally, "I am a jelly-filled doughnut."
In fact, the opposite is true: The citizens of Berlin do refer to themselves as Berliner; what they do not refer to as Berliner are jelly doughnuts. While these are known as "Berliner" in other areas of Germany, they are simply called Pfannkuchen (pancakes) in and around Berlin. Thus, the merely theoretical ambiguity would have gone unnoticed by Kennedy's overwhelmingly local audience.
As for the creation of the speech, it had been reviewed by journalist Robert Lochner, who was educated in Germany, and had been practiced several times in front of numerous Germans, including Berlin Mayor Willy Brandt. The many video and audio recordings of the event show only enthusiastic applause following the statement. During the speech Kennedy used the phrase twice, ending his speech on it. However, Kennedy did pronounce the sentence with his Boston accent, reading from his note "ish bin ein Bearleener," which he had written out phonetically