I understand this is a not-so-subtle nod to Kamala Harris, but I’m missing the nuance. Can you help this non-native speaker get the joke?
Präsident*in is a possibility to show that all genders are meant. In this case, they made the * so big, that you don’t read it anymore and only read Präsidentin.
Vote for Trump.
Präsident*in uses the “Genderstern” (the asterisk, although it’s called a star) to include ~~both~~ all genders in a word. So the poster says “don’t forget to elect a man president / woman president / whatever president”.
BUT they specifically note that they made the Sternchen (the asterisk/star) VERY BIG just to show “how impartial they are”, while actually by making such a big star that bears no relation to the word, the poster actually ends up saying “Präsidentin wählen”, that is “elect a woman president”
Also conservatives really hate gendern, so putting it in-your-face like that is an extra snub
(EDITed taking into account some comments)
In Germany the nouns have a gender: a president (he/him) would be Präsident, a president (she/her) would be Präsidentin.
To be more inclusive, the used form is [noun]*in, as female nouns tend to have the suffix „in“ and by this, the sentence can be read in both „genders“.
The add says „Präsident*in“, written like they mean Präsidentin. To state that they‘re unpolitical, they made the * as big as it is, but since it’s an American star and not the *, it can be ignored.
Edit: the * is called Genderstern
It tongue in cheeck .
1. Gendered speech, in Germany it became usual to write *”Präsident*in”* to make clear that you include a male *Präsident* but also a female *Präsidentin*. The gender extension is added with the ‘option indicating’ asterisk *
2. They claim to be non partisan so they would make the “Gender Star” especially big (… to indicate importance)
But by that (and by using the five pointed US version star instead of the asterisk) it becomes a visual logo and is no longer recognizable as part of the text, so it visually leaves the text “Präsidentin”, so only refering to a female president.
So they are partisan by explicitly claiming to be non-partisan.
I am so happy that the BVG has an opinion an US American bipartisan politics.
Reminder that in 2020, BVG had a similar ad.
Paraphrasing: “Since we have to be impartial, we wish the best to both (candidates).”
The German word for “both” is pronounced “Biden”, as in “Wir wünschen beiden viel Glück!”
Am Ende wird es Trump. Dann ist das Lachen überall zu hören. 😉 Sorry aber was bilden wir uns ein, ständig über andere Wahlen zu urteilen….
They should have a little asterix next to the big asterix to link to the note.
its german humor. its not very funny, but very german
Oh my God the huge corporation’s multimillion-euro PR department is *so brave.*
I like this ad. Who said Germans can’t be funny 😉😉😜
It says “Hey USA, today don’t forget: Choose a woman president” at first glance.
Then you look closer and they didn’t technically say that… but you can see they have done it in such a way that it was their meaning.
BVG is Berlins public transport company. They run buses, trams, trains and ferries here in Berlin. They have an history of interesting and creative adverts.
Aww, Berlin’s public transit authority felt the need to endorse a US presidential candidate. Well I guess that’s it, Kamala will win Pennsylvania and Georgia.
Silly little Europeans with their silly little European opinions
Honestly apart from the joke, is anyone else here annoyed by this? Germans have so much to say about other countries’ politics and culture that even a frikkin public transport company uses it for their ad campaign (while failing to provide proper service). I don’t understand why BVG needs to say anything about anything.
the BVG is once again the BVG. they want a want more than they can
Why does the BVG feel the need to endorse the candidate of the Democratic Party?
Everyone with a brain votes Trump anyways
Yet it’s none of their damn business….
Why they don’t care too much about elections in other parts of the world?
Sis is dscherman. Sere is no dschoke. Weitergehen.
/s
PS: others have given outstanding answers, I won’t bore you repeating them here 😉 <3
Ich kanns kaum erwarten bis Trump wieder Präsident wird.
no jokes just leftist propaganda as usual
You wouldnt get it
It pokes fun at German Media. In German media everything about Harris is good everything about Trump is bad.They make it seem like Germans opinion will matter in the US election. Most main stream media here leans to the left including state TV
This is a pretty good joke, but still unusual that a publicly owned company would offer such an endorsement.
the asterisk is a german culture war symbol. conservatives hate it
The comments on this post are absolutely cancer. Everyone who can endorse Kamala should if they don’t want their country invaded by an autocrat or they recognize the significance of the US role in the world. Happy they endorsed her. Everyone else should open their eyes to reality that Trump will make autocrats lives easier -> your life worse.
The joke is: Sprinkling money on ads regarding a foreign election while having record shortages in trains & staff. #becausewegetmoneyanyway
German usually has a dedicated word for female persons with a certain attribute/occupation.
E.g. Präsidentin means “female president”.
No such special word exists for male persons (or non-binary persons for that matter)
Some people hence think that due to this the non dedicated term (e.g. Präsident “president”) is more or less biased to the assumption that this person is male. Such people will use forms like “Präsident*in” in writing, where the astrix is known as “gender star” to indicate a gender neutral form. This opinion is more prevalent in left leaning circles while right leaning cycles consider it superfluous and point out the difficulty to make this construction interopt with the languages grammar.
The joke is now that the star is printed very large and not immediately recognisable as part of the text.
The comment says: “Because we are neutral when it comes to recommendations, we print the gender star very big today.”
With this input you should be able to get it.
There is no joke, it’s leftist propaganda.
Quite weird that people in Germany spend so much thought on who the Americans vote for
The joke is that the Berlin public transport network is spending money on adverts about American politics
Its a amusing cry for help from “leftists” who only accept your vote if you vote the way these clowns want you to vote.
I am an American living in Germany and I already did! #fucktrump
🤡💀
Visited Berlin for the first time last month and I was in awe at the BVG system and your wonderful city. I live in Chicago and we have a solid transit system but it seemed as bad as the awful transit options in the US South compared to Berlin. Kudos to the BVG.
I did my part today and voted for Kamala. My only wish is for more Americans to visit Berlin and go to the wonderful museums that illustrate what fascism does to a country. I traveled with some family members who have voted for Trump in the past and they kept saying how they will never do it again after realizing the parallels to 1930s Germany.
42 comments
I understand this is a not-so-subtle nod to Kamala Harris, but I’m missing the nuance. Can you help this non-native speaker get the joke?
Präsident*in is a possibility to show that all genders are meant. In this case, they made the * so big, that you don’t read it anymore and only read Präsidentin.
Vote for Trump.
Präsident*in uses the “Genderstern” (the asterisk, although it’s called a star) to include ~~both~~ all genders in a word. So the poster says “don’t forget to elect a man president / woman president / whatever president”.
BUT they specifically note that they made the Sternchen (the asterisk/star) VERY BIG just to show “how impartial they are”, while actually by making such a big star that bears no relation to the word, the poster actually ends up saying “Präsidentin wählen”, that is “elect a woman president”
Also conservatives really hate gendern, so putting it in-your-face like that is an extra snub
(EDITed taking into account some comments)
In Germany the nouns have a gender: a president (he/him) would be Präsident, a president (she/her) would be Präsidentin.
To be more inclusive, the used form is [noun]*in, as female nouns tend to have the suffix „in“ and by this, the sentence can be read in both „genders“.
The add says „Präsident*in“, written like they mean Präsidentin. To state that they‘re unpolitical, they made the * as big as it is, but since it’s an American star and not the *, it can be ignored.
Edit: the * is called Genderstern
It tongue in cheeck .
1. Gendered speech, in Germany it became usual to write *”Präsident*in”* to make clear that you include a male *Präsident* but also a female *Präsidentin*. The gender extension is added with the ‘option indicating’ asterisk *
2. They claim to be non partisan so they would make the “Gender Star” especially big (… to indicate importance)
But by that (and by using the five pointed US version star instead of the asterisk) it becomes a visual logo and is no longer recognizable as part of the text, so it visually leaves the text “Präsidentin”, so only refering to a female president.
So they are partisan by explicitly claiming to be non-partisan.
I am so happy that the BVG has an opinion an US American bipartisan politics.
Reminder that in 2020, BVG had a similar ad.
Paraphrasing: “Since we have to be impartial, we wish the best to both (candidates).”
The German word for “both” is pronounced “Biden”, as in “Wir wünschen beiden viel Glück!”
Am Ende wird es Trump. Dann ist das Lachen überall zu hören. 😉 Sorry aber was bilden wir uns ein, ständig über andere Wahlen zu urteilen….
They should have a little asterix next to the big asterix to link to the note.
its german humor. its not very funny, but very german
Oh my God the huge corporation’s multimillion-euro PR department is *so brave.*
I like this ad. Who said Germans can’t be funny 😉😉😜
It says “Hey USA, today don’t forget: Choose a woman president” at first glance.
Then you look closer and they didn’t technically say that… but you can see they have done it in such a way that it was their meaning.
BVG is Berlins public transport company. They run buses, trams, trains and ferries here in Berlin. They have an history of interesting and creative adverts.
Aww, Berlin’s public transit authority felt the need to endorse a US presidential candidate. Well I guess that’s it, Kamala will win Pennsylvania and Georgia.
Silly little Europeans with their silly little European opinions
Honestly apart from the joke, is anyone else here annoyed by this? Germans have so much to say about other countries’ politics and culture that even a frikkin public transport company uses it for their ad campaign (while failing to provide proper service). I don’t understand why BVG needs to say anything about anything.
the BVG is once again the BVG. they want a want more than they can
Why does the BVG feel the need to endorse the candidate of the Democratic Party?
Everyone with a brain votes Trump anyways
Yet it’s none of their damn business….
Why they don’t care too much about elections in other parts of the world?
Sis is dscherman. Sere is no dschoke. Weitergehen.
/s
PS: others have given outstanding answers, I won’t bore you repeating them here 😉 <3
Ich kanns kaum erwarten bis Trump wieder Präsident wird.
no jokes just leftist propaganda as usual
You wouldnt get it
It pokes fun at German Media. In German media everything about Harris is good everything about Trump is bad.They make it seem like Germans opinion will matter in the US election. Most main stream media here leans to the left including state TV
This is a pretty good joke, but still unusual that a publicly owned company would offer such an endorsement.
the asterisk is a german culture war symbol. conservatives hate it
The comments on this post are absolutely cancer. Everyone who can endorse Kamala should if they don’t want their country invaded by an autocrat or they recognize the significance of the US role in the world. Happy they endorsed her. Everyone else should open their eyes to reality that Trump will make autocrats lives easier -> your life worse.
The joke is: Sprinkling money on ads regarding a foreign election while having record shortages in trains & staff. #becausewegetmoneyanyway
German usually has a dedicated word for female persons with a certain attribute/occupation.
E.g. Präsidentin means “female president”.
No such special word exists for male persons (or non-binary persons for that matter)
Some people hence think that due to this the non dedicated term (e.g. Präsident “president”) is more or less biased to the assumption that this person is male. Such people will use forms like “Präsident*in” in writing, where the astrix is known as “gender star” to indicate a gender neutral form. This opinion is more prevalent in left leaning circles while right leaning cycles consider it superfluous and point out the difficulty to make this construction interopt with the languages grammar.
The joke is now that the star is printed very large and not immediately recognisable as part of the text.
The comment says: “Because we are neutral when it comes to recommendations, we print the gender star very big today.”
With this input you should be able to get it.
There is no joke, it’s leftist propaganda.
Quite weird that people in Germany spend so much thought on who the Americans vote for
The joke is that the Berlin public transport network is spending money on adverts about American politics
Its a amusing cry for help from “leftists” who only accept your vote if you vote the way these clowns want you to vote.
I am an American living in Germany and I already did! #fucktrump
🤡💀
Visited Berlin for the first time last month and I was in awe at the BVG system and your wonderful city. I live in Chicago and we have a solid transit system but it seemed as bad as the awful transit options in the US South compared to Berlin. Kudos to the BVG.
I did my part today and voted for Kamala. My only wish is for more Americans to visit Berlin and go to the wonderful museums that illustrate what fascism does to a country. I traveled with some family members who have voted for Trump in the past and they kept saying how they will never do it again after realizing the parallels to 1930s Germany.
The joke is that Americans can’t read German.
As if it makes a difference
⬅️ are destroying every country
Germany is the joke.
It’s a manipulation to vote for Harry’s 🤷♂️
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