Obamateurism of the Day: OBAMA says he doesn't speak Austrian

hotair.com ^ | April 6, 2009 | Ed Morrissey

[Tolik]

George Bush’s critics rightly roasted him for his tortured syntax and waterboarded grammar, and used it to make the claim that the graduate of both Harvard and Yale was an idiot.  Well, perhaps, but I don’t recall him ever claiming that Austrian was a language.  It takes a highly-esteemed intellect, it seems, to miss the fact that Austrians mainly speak German:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tr7zhnctF4c

 

Obama: It was also interesting to see that political interaction in Europe is not that different from the United States Senate. There’s a lot of — I don’t know what the term is in Austrian — wheeling and dealing — and, you know, people are pursuing their interests, and everybody has their own particular issues and their own particular politics.

Austrians speak German and Italian primarily, as well as French — and I’m sure some Austrians speak languages ranging from Albanian to Swahili, being an intelligent and cultured people. However, none of the speak Austrian, because it doesn’t exist.

I got a deluge of e-mails on this, so thanks to all who sent the tip.  Other bloggers on this Obamateurism:

• American Thinker
• Jim Treacher’s Twitter message
• Josh Painter

Update: LGF claims they have a clip of Bush bowing to Abdullah, but he’s actually bending down to receive a medal from the Saudi king.  Bush is much taller than Abdullah, which would have made it impossible for Abdullah to get the medal around his neck otherwise.  We can question whether Bush should have accepted a medal from the Saudis, but he wasn’t greeting Abdullah with a bow.

Got an Obamateurism of the Day? If you see a foul-up by Barack Obama, e-mail it to me at obamaisms@edmorrissey.com with the quote and the link to the Obamateurism. I’ll post the best Obamateurisms on a daily basis, depending on how many I receive. Include a link to your blog, and I’ll give some link love as well. And unlike Slate, I promise to end the feature when Barack Obama leaves office.

Illustrations by Chris Muir of Day by Day.

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Barcepundit: OBAMA SAYS he doesn't speak Austrian. It's unknown if he can speak Argentinean or Brazilian but, to his credit, his American is way better than his English.

[patton]

“Hier in Bayern gibt’s kein Rasenhass, du Saupreiss, du.”

That one I know - never heard the other.

[Jonny foreigner]

Piefke?

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this word is really hard to describe, because there are so many ways to interpret. it is used to talk negative about a german. (especially northern germans). very popular in austria :-) (or in other words it represents all someone might could dislike on a german citizen in generall). normaly it´s used along with the word “scheiß”(shit or shitty) piefke. so a simple translation would be. you “shitty” german. :-) but again you don´t have to take this too serious all the time.

[patton]

“etzat ma klur.”

;)

[CommerceComet]

Everyone know that the Austrians speak Australian!

I always thought that they spoke POCKistani.

[Jonny foreigner]

I think the Austrians may use Piefke for all Germans. Saupreiß is used more by the Bavarians.

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hey we would never call someone from bavaria Piefke. you “i assume you are a Bavarian” are not even “germans” in our eyes :-)
greetings.

[Jonny foreigner]

:-)

[CaliforniaCon]

Re: “Take a classic ghetto jive talker Three Card Monte hustler-idiot, give him an affirmative action Harvard socialist education, and... voila... you have Obama!”

***************

You forgot Chicago community organizer thug, i.e., rabble-rouser!

[CaliforniaCon]

RE: “I failed to mention that he is a perfect representative of those who voted for him”

***********

The perfect rep for most of them, yes! And the rest who voted for the fraud, who probably do know better than to think there is an Austrian language, will sweep such gaffes away the same way they dismissed Clinton’s Oval Office frolicking.

I wish Zero would go to Switzerland and mention that he does not speak “Swiss.” heh heh......

[Jonny foreigner]

Everyone know that the Austrians speak Australian! ------------ good one! *lol* btw. they sell this to tourists in vienna.

[Jonny foreigner]

damn it. pic doesn´t work :-( funny t-shirts who say there are no kangoroos here in austria.

[CaliforniaCon]

RE: “Everyone knows that the Austrians speak Australian! —————— good one!”

***********

Funny — many years ago my father, who took a business trip to Austria, had a young, uninformed secretary who told people who called in his absence that he was “in Europe, in AUSTRALIA.” hahahahaha

[shoutingandpointing]

“ It was also interesting to see that political interaction in Europe is not that different from the United States Senate. There’s a lot of — I don’t know what the term is in Austrian — wheeling and dealing — and, you know, people are pursuing their interests, and everybody has their own particular issues and their own particular politics.”

—

"I don't know what the term is in Austrian." Snarf. lol

See? Just as someone worldy-wise once told the rest of us, this is exactly why it is important for Americans to learn to speak other countries' languages. It is unfortunate for him that the public schools he attended did not ensure that he was fluent in Austrian prior to graduation. /s

[Dick Bachert]

He’ll probably never go to Isreal. He doesn’t speak Jew.

[4Liberty]

[Bigg Red]

A comic once joked about Dan Quayle saying he did not speak Latin when visiting Latin America, but it was a joke and not a fact. Regardless, the media reported that as a fact hundreds of times over many many years.

&&&
OMW! I wondered about that. The first time I heard that tale was last week; it was in a clue on Jeopardy and reported as fact.

[NFHale]

C’mon now...think about it...”Toy Story”...Mr. Potatohead... the similarities are striking...

But “Scheisskopf”...hmm...yeah, I guess I can see that too...

Maybe “der grosse bescheuert scheisskopf”

[Republic of Texas]

Give the guy a break, maybe he meant Australian?

[ccmay]

Österreich doesn´t mean Eastern nation. it´s true that “ost” translated into english means “east” and “reich” can be translated into “empire,kingdom...”) But this is just “ coincidence” that this fits somehow with the english language.

Wiktionary.de gives several theories, the first of which is that the name does indeed come from an archaic form of "eastern empire" :

Herkunft:
[1] um 996 n. Chr. als Ostarrîchi bezeichnet, was sich wahrscheinlich aus der damaligen Bezeichnung für Osten und dem Begriff für „eingegrenztes Gebiet“ (-rîchi) ableitet. Es gibt auch Theorien, dass sich der Name Österreichs von dem Namen Ostara, der germanischen Göttin des Frühlings und der Morgenröte (Osten) ableitet oder aber slawischen Ursprungs ostarik, ostrik - Spitzberg ist.

[Always Right]

Jeapordy needs to vent their questions a bit more thoroughly.

[Jonny foreigner]

Wiktionary.de gives several theories, the first of which is that the name does indeed come from an archaic form of “eastern empire” :

Herkunft:
[1] um 996 n. Chr. als Ostarrîchi bezeichnet, was sich wahrscheinlich aus der damaligen Bezeichnung für Osten und dem Begriff für „eingegrenztes Gebiet“ (-rîchi) ableitet. Es gibt auch Theorien, dass sich der Name Österreichs von dem Namen Ostara, der germanischen Göttin des Frühlings und der Morgenröte (Osten) ableitet oder aber slawischen Ursprungs ostarik, ostrik - Spitzberg ist.

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this is exactly what was confusing me. there are so many theories i guess no one can say today which one exactly did fit. i guess it has been a mix of local language (even this differed from time to time,) different political and territory conflicts. (goes even back to the romans...) but last but not least it was named österreich. why? i guess we will never know for shure. but then again who really cares. i still like living here.
greetings