[eburke]

Um, lingua franca is Italian.

"Ich bin ein Berliner" is German for "I am a cream filled donut". The correct German is "Ich bin Berliner" (something the "brilliant" Harvard men around JFK didn't know).

Otherwise, I'm with you. About time we threw the French off the Security Council. They made such a contribution to winning WWII

[Defiant]

I'll be damned.. you're right. I guess it should be obvious, since "french" would be "frances" (Parle vouz frances?) or some such in its own language.

Mon dieu! Now if only they could come up with a word for "deodorant".

[Defiant]

"Ich bin ein Berliner" is German for "I am a cream filled donut". The correct German is "Ich bin Berliner" (something the "brilliant" Harvard men around JFK didn't know).

Oh, and I learned this in Mr. Wagner's AP History class a long time ago. Americans mostly ignore this small mistake, it's little known. Kinda proves the point--we don't care if we butcher somebody's language, we can barely be bothered to learn them to begin with. After all, we speak the lingua franca.