Had Bush or Dan Quayle said this, it would have been front page news
Bookworm on Apr 05 2009 at 9:16 am | Filed under: Barack Obama, Media matters
But when Obama says something so ignorantly stupid even my children wouldn’t sink so low, a American media says absolutely nothing at all.
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16 Responses to “Had Bush or Dan Quayle said this, it would have been front page news”
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Ok…from a man who would soon visit the other 57 states, it wasn’t so much a surprise as a to be expected.
This, on the other hand…
http://sweetness-light.com/archive/obama-must-come-together-for-global-regime
_This_ is a shock. There it is…plain as day.
My first thought was…”well, anybody can screw up under the pressure of answering questions in real time…not that big a deal, though it certainly would have been portrayed as one had Bush or Palin done it.”
But on thinking about it more, I’m not sure sure it’s a trivial issue. Specifically, I don’t think someone who had an in-depth familiarity with the history of WWII would have made such a mistake, given that Austria was Hitler’s first conquest and that he justified it in part on the basis of common language.
(Some have pointed out that the Austrian dialect of German is referred to as “Austrian”…I guess this is like referring to a person who speaks with a Texas accent as “speaking Texan.” Does anyone really believe Obama was in possession of this particular esoteric bit of knowledge, particularly given his own lack of linguistic skills? I don’t.)
Oh well, one more nail in the coffin to the clowns who claimed that they were voting for Obama for his foreign policy expertise. Unfortunately for that statement, it is also a nail in OUR coffin, as he is OUR President representing US abroad.
Which makes me wonder if some of the Ami-hating Euros wanted Obama for President because they had figured out that he was someone it would be very easy for Europeans to feel superior to?
For all the alleged stupidity, word mangling, and uncouth Texan rep of Dubya (my understanding of Harvard Business School is that the lower rankings get booted, and he stayed to finish..) I would wager he committed few faux pas in dealing with furriners in 8 years than Obama has shown in two and a half months.
I hope that Obama doesn’t say that a resident of the United Arab Emirates speaks United Arab. Or that someone from Oman speaks Omani. Or Paki in Pakistan. (Could you imagine the uproar if he said THAT, given the pejorative reputation that the term “Paki” has in some quarters?) Though from experience I would say that there is a distinct difference between the Venezuelan and Argentine languages.
Those who have an affinity for foreign languages who are wondering what language they should learn: not French, not Chinese, but AUSTRIAN should be their next language!
American: “We don’t have any sausage.”
Austrian: “Nicht haben keine weinerschnitzel.”
German: “Nicht haben keine weinerschnitzel. Dummkopf.”
See? There is a difference between Austrian and German!
a American media says absolutely nothing at all.
A tool only does what it is commanded to do, Book. God forbid that our guns would get up and shoot whatever targets it wanted to. That would be a horrendous breach of the status quo, so des neh.
Danny: except that weinerschnitzel is fried/sauteed breaded veal, and wurst is sausage. Bratwurst, liverwurst, etc. My parents introduced me to liverwurst when I was a preschooler. I refused to try it. After all, it was worse than liver.
You were correct about dummkopf. The Prussians and the Viennese: ya there is a difference, and “dummkopf” sums it up pretty well. Perhaps “achtung dummkopf” also expresses the difference.
>>Some have pointed out that the Austrian dialect of German is referred to as “Austrian”>>
I don’t think so…I think it’s usually called “Low German” as opposed to “High German” of the northern part of Germany. Which I always thought was a bit odd, since that meant that the Low German was used in the mountains of Germany, and the High German was spoken on the flatlands…
And that would be Wienerschnitzel, not Weinerschnitzel. Long e. Wei would be long i in pronunciation.
And “Nicht haben keine..” would be plural form double negative… as in “We don’t have no”… It should be “Wir haben keine …”
And about that leberwurst….if you take liverwurst, add some mayonaise and pickle relish, it makes a good spread for crackers. Keeping in mind that “Everything’s better when it sits on a Ritz!”
That’s what I get for trying to make a joke based on one semester of German from 25 years ago!
As to the double negative, I did actually think that that was a proper construction in that language… oh well.
How do you translate weinerschnitzel into English???
(without using more than one or two words…)
I think it’s wienerschnitzel!!
Actually, the “wiener” is from Vienna, I think, and the schnitzel is a small cutlet. Schnitzen is the verb to cut, and the el part is a diminutive form. German is a very logical language… I liked it. I started French 3 times and bombed every time. When you think about it, almost all of the words in the English language that are spelled completely illogically derive from the French. They have rules with rules that apply to the exceptions to the rules. Crazy language.
Guess that was more than one or two words…!!
German is logical but then so is bricklaying which IMHO German most closely resembles. If a typical German sentence had mass and you dropped it on your foot, it would be crushing. I know some Spanish & Italian but very little French. I’d agree with you, sue, (based of course on very cursory knowledge) that French seems illogical and even hermetic in its spelling; as if the French were determined linguistically to not only to distinguish themselves from other latinate language speakers but to obfuscate as well, verbally keeping the riffraff out, so to speak.
Let me add there are rare but documented cases of German speakers actually injuring their auditors with stacked adjectives.
s if the French were determined linguistically to not only to distinguish themselves from other latinate language speakers but to obfuscate as well, verbally keeping the riffraff out, so to speak.
E-mail was officially banned in France. Replaced with e-maile accent on the last e. Whoooo.
Ha! I rest my case.
Zhombre #11
>> Let me add there are rare but documented cases of German speakers actually injuring their auditors with stacked adjectives.
I almost fell off my chair, wonderful!
I went ahead and looked this one up:
Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz also won a special award as the longest German word of the year. (to express a law having to do with British beef (Rindfleisch) and the so-called “mad cow disease.”)
Mike, I once had a grad student roommate from Berlin. Like most Germans I have met, his Brit-accented English was impeccable. I got a good laugh out of him one time by making up some polysyllabic German-sounding word. So, the Germans recognize this quirk in their language.
to express a law having to do with British beef (Rindfleisch) and the so-called “mad cow disease.”)
German bureaucracy is a unique thing. Had America allied with Germany in WWI with the British against France, things would have been a lot different.