Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2011 January 25

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January 25

'I Am a Jelly Donut'

How do you say that in German? (I know that JFK didn't meant or said that by accident.) 212.169.187.15 (talk) 00:30, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

'Ich bin ein Krapfen' means 'I am a donut', but 'Berliner Pfannkuchen' (or just 'Berliner') is the type of donut specifically with jam (not jelly) in it. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 00:36, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

We have an article on JFK's speech: Ich bin ein Berliner. WikiDao ☯ 00:39, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

(after multiple edit conflicts) JFK spoke correctly. (Well, sort of. "Ich bin Berliner" without the indefinite article would be better). See Jelly doughnut urban legend. I guess a person from Berlin playing a jelly doughnut in a children's show would say "Ich bin ein Pfannkuchen". If the actor is not from Berlin there are plenty of ways of saying it, see Berliner (pastry) and de:Berliner Pfannkuchen. ---Sluzzelin talk 00:40, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

No, "ich bin Berliner" isn't perfect, it means literally that you are from Berlin. "Ich bin ein Berliner" means I am one of you, Berliner. Quest09 (talk) 00:53, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

I was going to ask which kind of jelly was intended, American English jelly, or British English jelly? It makes it hard to be sure of a translation into another language when English speakers can't even agree on the right word in their language. HiLo48 (talk) 00:41, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

(EC) Yes, I just read the article and found it interesting to see 'jelly' for the German 'Konfitüre' ('jam') right next to 'doughnut' (British spelling of 'donut'). --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 00:45, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Fruit preserves quotes from a US cookbook about jam, and says that "freezer jams" are popular in the US. Meanwhile in the UK we have cranberry jelly, not jam, presumably because it fits the definition of jelly (just made from juice, no fruit pieces). So now I'm unsure whether the US and the UK even do use different terms. 213.122.4.91 (talk) 01:20, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

I confirm that in American English, jelly is made from strained juice, whereas jam is made from unstrained fruit puree. I was not aware that those terms were used differently in British English. On the other hand, in American English, we have a third term, preserves referring to jam mixed with larger chunks of (cooked) fruit. Then there is marmalade, which is citrus jam mixed with cooked citrus rinds. Marco polo (talk) 02:46, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, preserves and marmalade are UK English too. The real difference is that UK jelly usually refers to gelatin desserts, that is, Jell-O, and also I think we frequently break the definition of jelly and mislabel it as jam - except, for some reason, with the cranberry kind. Erratic, huh. 81.131.1.159 (talk) 04:41, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

The other main "exception" in Britain (more common than cranberry jelly), is bramble jelly, a smooth "jam" made from blackberries - [1]. Ghmyrtle (talk) 09:57, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Hardly an "exception". We have rasperry jelly, apple jelly, blackcurrant jelly, and any other fruit you care to mention if the "jam" is strained to make a fairly clear product. Dbfirs 19:52, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

OK, so the summary seems to be that jelly in the American sense can be called jelly in the UK as well, but can also be called jam in the UK, whereas in the US it can't. Jelly in the UK can mean gelatin dessert, whereas in the US it can't.

So the British English has the advantage that there's a convenient word encompassing both US jam and US jelly, which American English doesn't have. On the other hand, American usage is less ambiguous. --Trovatore (talk) 21:56, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that's a fair summary. Americans have the advantage of a monopoly manufacturer of the dessert product, and their trade name has become a common word, so "jello" in US English nearly always translates to and from "jelly" in UK English, though "{named fruit} jelly" can mean the same on both sides of the pond. The ambiguity over whether the setting agent is gelatine or pectin doesn't seem to be a problem in most contexts, and we revert to "jam" whenever there could be confusion. Dbfirs 13:12, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I have never heard of a "jam donut", even though the better sort of raspberry jelly donuts have some seeds left in the jelly, which might therefore be called "jam" even in American English. It's always "jelly donut". It's a fixed phrase. As for gelatin donuts — yuck. --Trovatore (talk) 09:08, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Here in the UK, I've never heard of a "jelly doughnut". Here, jam is the general term for sweetened fruit preserves in the UK, though those with higher fruit content are sometimes called "conserves", and those that are strained through muslin with no pieces of fruit in the produce are usually called "jelly" or sometimes "no bits jam". (And, as mentioned above, the word "jelly" is also used for what is called "Jell-O" across the pond, i.e. the more dilute and less sweetened gelatine product, though there is also the possibility of a true home-made jelly that is intermediate between the two.) Dbfirs 09:11, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

it is a sadly common misconception that "berliner" refers to a donut. In standard high German (Hochdeutsch) "berliner" is the standard and accepted way to say "a (male) resident of Berlin." I have never spoken to any German that would interpret "berliner" as "jelly donut." German is a highly precise language and "Berliner Pfannkuchen" means jelly donut, and "Berliner" means "(male) denizen of Berlin." Any controversy to the contrary is purely a media fabrication. 65.29.47.55 (talk) 08:56, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Your German knowledge is rather limited. Berliner is a perfectly common word to refer to jelly doughnut. 212.169.188.253 (talk) 12:32, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

No, the fabrication is that German is a "highly precise language", I'm afraid. I don't think I've ever heard anybody say "Berliner Pfannkuchen". In everyday speech, these things are always called "Berliner" (regionally they may have different names) and there's no misunderstanding about that. --Wrongfilter (talk) 09:04, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

I've spoken to Germans that had no idea that Berliner meant anything except a man from Berlin... Of course maybe they just hadn't ever heard the other definition used in their area or among their friends or whatever. I actually did ask about this fact when I was staying with a German family, and was told that they would never interpret Berliner *in this context* as a donut. I should have, ironically, been more clear about that. I know Berliner can mean a jam donut but it would be a rather odd interpretation when you've already said "I am a". If you wanted to say "I am a jelly donut" I still believe that it would be better to say "Ich bin ein Berliner Pfannkuchen" 65.29.47.55 (talk) 17:49, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

No, there are only two situations in which "Ich bin ein Berliner Pfannkuchen" sounds natural: When you say it with a Berlin accent, or when you say it in Berlin. Otherwise you would say "Ich bin ein Berliner" or (a variant of) "Ich bin ein Krapfen", again depending on where you are [from]. Hans Adler 22:46, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Guilty as charged, of the times I've been to Germany most of my time has been spent in Berlin, except for staying with the aforementioned family which was in the Baden area. I can't vouch for how you'd say it in Dresden or Dusseldorf. 65.29.47.55 (talk) 23:02, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

They do indeed have different names regionally, notably in Berlin itself where they're just called Pfannkuchen. If a Berliner ever wanted to say "I am a jelly doughnut", he would say Ich (or Ick) bin ein Pfannkuchen. Pais (talk) 10:41, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

So in the end, it's just a question of the word "Berliner" having many meanings. It usually means "a male resident of Berlin", but it can also be used as a shorthand for "Berliner Pfannkuchen", but this meaning is far less known. According to what I have learned of this, JFK was entirely correct to say "Ich bin ein Berliner". JIP | Talk 20:10, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

I've heard of this misconception a couple of times before, but I always have to be reminded of what it was exactly - for instance, if I was to read just the OP's question, I'd have had no idea what he was talking about. This is because the misconception itself is so preposterous that I keep forgetting what it is. Yes, Kennedy was perfectly fine with saying what he said, there is absolutely no ambiguity about what he meant, "Ich bin Berliner" would have sounded much more awkward and the journalist quoted in the article who claims the Berliners in the audience were giggling about this horrible faux pas was obviously just making things up as he went. TomorrowTime (talk) 20:28, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

A time-honoured journalistic practice which flourishes to this day. You've only got to see where they put quotation marks; they make up a bunch of words they want us to believe someone said, then encase them in quote marks to give them an air of authenticity, as if the subject actually used that precise set of words and no other. Only rarely is that the case. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 20:42, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Now let's do one small step for (a) man.... --Trovatore (talk) 22:31, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

(ec) Actually, the audience did laugh – but not on the two occasions when Kennedy said "Ich bin ein Berliner" himself, but only after he thanked the interpreter for translating the phrase to German. By the way, according to the German Wikipedia the sentence is modelled after a sentence spoken in Chapter 16 of Jule Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. (Rendered in the German WP as "Ich bin ein Inder".) Hans Adler 22:37, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

To come back to the original question, German Berliners are spherical, not doughnut-shaped, and they are always surrounded by loose sugar, with no variations. So it depends on context whether you can translate jelly doughnut as Berliner. Supposing we are in a context where you can, and you do want to say that you are a jelly doughnut, then "Ich bin ein Berliner" is the only natural way of expressing the idea. In exactly the same way that "I'm a Hamburger" is the only natural way of expressing the idea that you are one of those fastfood things that are named exactly like the citizens of Hamburg. Hans Adler 22:42, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

American jelly donuts are not donut-shaped either. (Where would you put the jelly? I suppose you could put it longitudinally around the torus, but manufacturing would be difficult.) But they're not spherical. You might say they're hamburger-shaped. --Trovatore (talk) 23:03, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Incidentally, on a sort-of related but completely different linguistic topic, this sort of sentence can refer to food and still make perfectly good sense in Japanese - look for "unagi" (these sort of sentences - i.e. "I am foodstuf" - are colloquially known as "unagi sentences") in the article Japanese grammar. TomorrowTime (talk) 01:44, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Heh heh heh. It's a Japanese equivalent of "call me a taxi!" or perhaps the "I'm off" / "I wondered what the smell was" gag. (Where's the dad joke article?) 81.131.14.206 (talk) 02:43, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Åborätt

Is there any good English word that corresponds to Swedish Åborätt? --Soman (talk) 01:03, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Copyhold? --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 01:09, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, --Soman (talk) 01:12, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

"There is" vs. "There are"

Two possible versions of a sentence:

"Students are told that there is an enormous number of atoms or molecules in any laboratory-scale sample of a substance."

"Students are told that there are an enormous number of atoms or molecules in any laboratory-scale sample of a substance."

Opinion among family members and Facebook friends is divided as to which is "correct"! In particular, I am a native speaker of British English (as are my family and most of my friends): maybe this is a difference between British and American English? If so, I need the American English version for the document I'm preparing! Physchim62 (talk) 15:06, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

I would use the first (I'm also a British English speaker) the use of 'are an' seems clumsy to me - an alternative would be "there are enormous numbers of...". Mikenorton (talk) 15:26, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

It depends on what sense you read the sentence. If the core of the predicate is "atoms", then "are" would be correct. If the core of the predicate is "number", then "is" would be correct. English tends to connect the sense of the verb to the sense of that verb's subject gramatically speaking, though there is a distinction between British and American practice (for example, in dealing with group nouns). The question becomes which word is the antecedant of the pronoun "There". If the antecedant is plural, the verb should be "are". There is, of course, ambiguity over the "real" antecedant, so both forms should be "acceptable", you should use whatever form sounds best to you. --Jayron32 15:35, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

I am a native speaker of American English and have been a professional editor for 15 years. In my opinion, the first version is the most correct grammatically and should probably be used in formal writing. However, the second version is more common colloquially, so the first might sound a bit funny to an American unfamiliar with grammatical rules. (And, sadly, probably most American science teachers are not well versed in grammar.) I second Mikenorton's suggestion to recast the sentence "...there are enormous numbers of atoms..." Marco polo (talk) 15:58, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

The Economist style guide recommends that "a number" is plural but "the number" is singular[2]. I don't have the Chicago Manual of Style here, but various sites say it recommends the plural.[3] The BBC's Learning English website[4] also says "There are a significant number of sources" is correct.

Googling "there is a number of" vs "there are a number of" is not totally clear: Google's figures (which are unreliable at the best of times) suggest overall usage of both is at a similar level. Singular is more common on the BBC website and slightly more common on the NY Times, London Guardian, and London Daily Telegraph. The LA Times and Chicago Tribune exclusively use the plural, which suggests adherence to a style guide. I can't find any site that exclusively uses the singular. --Colapeninsula (talk) 18:27, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Marco Polo, you say the "there are" version is more common colloquially. That surprises me. I hear people saying "there's ...", no matter whether they're talking about one item or many. "There are ..." is harder to say, so it tends to get short shrift, colloquially. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 20:36, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

The "there's" version may well be the "there are" version; see [5]. There is a theory that some "strange" uses of "there is" in print are actually caused by copyeditors who expand "there's" to "there is" instead of "there are". — Carl (CBM · talk) 20:49, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Webster's Dictionary of English Usage gives the rule of thumb (without raising it to an absolute rule) that "a number" is plural and "the number" is singular. The reason is of course that in the first case we are usually not interested in the actual number but just talking about many things, while in the second case we usually have a precise number in mind. Your example falls right in the middle, so basically either is correct.

My personal opinion is that the first is way better because in the second "an enormous number" sounds like a bombastic paraphrase of "lots", while in the first it sounds natural. In other words: While it is a paraphrase of "lots", we must take care not to admit it and pretend we are interested in the actual number. (Is it even or odd? Could it be a prime?) Hans Adler 18:59, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

I think there is a difference between the stock phrase a number of—which many style guides consider a plural modifier similar to several or lots of—and an enormous number of—which I think shifts the focus onto number as a singular noun. Again, I would advise avoiding this awkward construction. Marco polo (talk) 19:41, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

As a well-educated AmE speaker I find the first somewhat jolting and the second better. Because the molecules are individual things that can be counted, and internally I read the subject as "molecules". There is also a langauge log post on the subject [6], as you'd expect. — Carl (CBM · talk) 20:25, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Question about "The small number of people who know grammar"

I'm curious about the name linguists use for the following construction:

"The small number of people who eat fish every week have low cholesterol counts"

meaning "People who eat fish every week have low cholesterol counts, and only a small number of people eat fish every week". It's perfectly idiomatic to me but I have no idea what it's called or how to analyze it grammatically. Note that

"A small number of people who eat fish every week have low cholesterol counts"

has a very different meaning (if you don't see the difference, add "only" to the beginning of both sentences). — Carl (CBM · talk) 20:21, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't know what the formal name is (if any) for this particular use of it, but that choice of definite vs. indefinite article can screw you up if you're not careful. A number of people who know the difference between articles would say that the number of people who know a (any) difference between articles is troublingly low... ☯.ZenSwashbuckler.☠ 21:24, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

I've never come across a name for this construction: I would say that the sentence is making a subsidiary claim. --ColinFine (talk) 23:35, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Eszett

There are some German given names with ä, ö or ü. For example: Ägidius, Bartholomäus, Cäcilie, Cäsar, Irenäus, Taddäus / Björn, Cölestin, Götz, Jörg / Günther, Jürgen, Rüdiger. Is there any German given name with the eszett (ß)?--151.51.162.12 (talk) 22:15, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Incidentally, many of the names you mention are borrowed from other languages. If I'm not mistaken, only the last five are originally German. As for your question, I don't think so, but I'd feel better if you waited for some confirmation by some other editor before you took my word for that. TomorrowTime (talk) 22:27, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Forenames with an eszett are certainly rare and I can't find any in common use. "Hanß" seems to have been an old alternative spelling of Hans.[7][8] ("Hanß" is still found as a surname and there are plenty of other surnames with ß.) --Colapeninsula (talk) 10:28, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

In a list of forenames I found Theiß and Thieß (also spelled Theis, Thies, This), which are short forms of Matthias. Hans Adler 17:46, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

This old list of names found on the North Frisian Islands of Föhr, Amrum and Sylt between 1600 and 1900 mentions: "Anderß", "Claaß", the mentioned "Hanß", "Jenß", "Niß", "Roß", and "Ruß" as male names, as well as "Oß", "Oße", "Sißel", and "Sißele" as female names. I agree with Colapeninsula though: such names are extremely rare nowadays, and I can't recall having ever consciously encountered one before (I think I would have noticed it). Interesting question, 151.51. ---Sluzzelin talk 18:45, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

The only one listed at de:Liste von Vornamen is Thieß, which is not a name I've ever heard. —Angr (talk) 22:05, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

I found two possible viable names: Narziß ([9] and [10], but it could be an archaic form of Narziss) & Edelweiß (I don't have any reference but I think I remeber it being a real name).--151.51.162.12 (talk) 22:34, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Narziß is good. Since the 1996 spelling reform it should theoretically be Narziss, but the spelling reform doesn't apply to personal names. Edelweiß is the name of a flower (and a song from The Sound of Music); I don't think it's used as a name. German speakers aren't prone to naming their daughters after flowers like English speakers are. —Angr (talk) 22:47, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Gauß. Bo Jacoby (talk) 00:45, 27 January 2011 (UTC).

The only example of Gauß as a given name I could find is Gauss Moutinho Cordeiro, but he doesn't spell it with an ß. ---Sluzzelin talk 00:55, 27 January 2011 (UTC)