Page 5 - GC-Jan-Feb-2025

The German Citizen • January - February 2025 • 5
German Leckerbissen – Part 18

By Daniel Schwarz Dortmund exchange students get grand tour of Buffalo
ne of the closest words to tid- he Buffalo Dortmund Sis-
bit in German is Leckerbis- ter City Committee in the
Osen. Literally Leckerbissen TFall of 2024 hosted 18 ex-
means tasty morsels or bits. The fol- change students from Dortmund,
lowing may include some tidbits of Germany, who are enrolled in five
German culture, foods/drinks, tradi- local high schools.
tions, history, language, and current On Oct. 16, several Committee
events. members, including Steuben's
• German Hat Pins – When Samuel Helm Unit 144 officers Paul
you attend a German festival it is Jones and Mike Riester, escorted 16
very common to see men and of the German exchange students on
women wearing German style hats a tour of downtown Buffalo.
with various colorful and decorative The day started with a visit to the
pins attached to them. It is especially courtroom of United States Magis-
a trend to see them at Oktoberfest trate Judge Jeremiah J. McCarthy,
events. There are many styles of who explained to the visiting stu-
hats, but the green or gray wool Fe- dents how the federal and state
dora Alpine or Bavarian is probably courts operate in the U.S. The stu-
the most common for men and red dents also stayed to watch a deten-
Tirolean for women. The pins are tion probation hearing of a defen-
collected by the hat wearer as sou- dant in a criminal case conducted by
venirs of places that they have vis- Judge McCarthy.
ited or just typical colorful German From there the students went to
themes such as flowers, flags, and the Rath County Office Building to
even beer steins. Each collection is meet with Erie County Comptroller
as different and unique as the person and Canisius University political sci-
collecting them and wearing them ence professor Kevin Hardwick,
as a style statement, conversation ished by their teacher Herr Büttner who talked to them about the work-
starter, and just a fun hat accessory. for being rowdy, and not listening ings of government in the United
The photo shows my German hat in class. The teacher decided to give States at the federal, state, and local
and my pin accessories collected them an in-class math assignment to levels.
over many years. Besides my travel quiet them down. They were as- The tour continued with a back-
location pins, you can see a pin for signed the problem of adding to- stage tour of Shea's 710 Theatre,
the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, gether all the numbers from 1 to 100 conducted by Shea's Senior Produc-
Buffalo Sabres Hockey, and of and coming up with the total. As the tion Manager Maureen Sheldon.
course The Buffalo Bills football – boys started to scribble this task of The final downtown stop was
“Go Bills!” adding numbers on their slate Buffalo's historic art deco City Hall.
• Stein name pronounced as boards, Carl just stared into the dis- The students were welcomed there
Stine or Steen? - This question can tance and thought to himself there by Brian J. Bollman, president pro
only be answered by the people with must be a simpler way to solve this tempore of the Buffalo Common
last names ending in stein. It is their problem than adding so many num- Council, and by Emerson Barr III, stained glass sunburst ceiling, and a 1970s, and has hosted exchange stu-
preference on how to pronounce bers. He quickly came up with a executive director of the Buffalo trip to the 28th floor observation dents from Dortmund nearly every
their own name. Some prefer stine shortcut and wrote down a few num- Arts Commission. The visit to City deck with 360° views of Buffalo and year since. Most of the students stay
and others steen. Names typically bers and the final answer to the prob- Hall included a description of the the waterfront. with host families, some who have
written with stein endings are of Ger- lem and handed it to the teacher. It lobby paintings and sculptures, the Buffalo has been a Sister City children in the same schools, and
man Jewish heritage. Stein in Ger- amazed the teacher when the answer Common Council Chambers with its with Dortmund, Germany, since the some who are empty-nesters.
man means “stone”, which in Ger- was correct and done so fast. He
man is pronounced “ssh-tine”. We asked him, “how did you do that?”
have probably all heard of the Amer- Carl replied, “I thought there could
ican conductor and composer be a shortcut, and I found it: 100
Leonard Bernstein, who uses stine plus 1 is 101; 99 plus 2 is 101; 98
as the stein ending to his name. Then plus 3 is 101; and if I continued the
there is the acclaimed actor, play- series all the way to 51 plus 50, it
wright Harvey Fierstein, who uses would be 50 pairs of numbers with
the steen ending. If you are uncer- each pair summing to 101, which
tain of the preferred pronunciation, when 50 x 101 is multiplied gives
and if you can, just ask the person. the answer as 5,050.” From that
They will appreciate hearing their time forward his math skills were
name pronounced correctly, just as recognized, nurtured, and the rest of
people appreciate having their name his mathematical genius and contri-
spelled correctly. butions to mathematics is history.
• Famous German – Carl • Hilfreiche Hinweise (Helpful
Friedrich Gauss (1777-1855) is hints) - When traveling to countries
generally regarded as one of the that use the metric system, which in-
greatest mathematicians of all time. cludes Germany, knowing the fol-
He also contributed knowledge in lowing conversions could come in
the sciences of physics, planetary, handy:
and astronomy. Already as a young C to F: Air temperature degrees
boy in primary school, Carl’s math- Celsius (C) or centigrade to Fahren-
ematical prowess started to show. heit (F), where the standard formula
An example of this is when Carl and is F = 1.8 (C) or 9/5 (C) + 32. Yes,
his classmates were all being pun-
this is difficult to calculate without
a calculator, but a good shortcut ap-
proximation is to multiply the tem-
perature in degrees Celsius by 2, and
then add 30. An example: 30 de-
RIGHT HERE! grees C x 2 + 30 = 90 degrees
Fahrenheit.
F to C: Air temperature degrees
Fahrenheit (F) to Celsius (C), where
the standard formula is C = 5/9 x (F
- 32), but a good shortcut approxi-
mation is to subtract 30 from the
temp in degrees Fahrenheit, and
Advertise your then divide by 2. An example: 90
degrees F – 30 divided by 2 = 30 de-
business or grees Celsius.
km/h to m/h: Kilometers per
next event in hour to miles per hour standard for-
mula is m/h = 0.621371 km/h. But
The German a simple shortcut approximation is
taking 10 percent of the km/h plus
Citizen adding half of the km/h. An example
for 100 km/h is: .10 (100 km/h) +
100 km/h divided by 2 = 10 + 50 =
Call Steve or 60 m/h. Using the standard formula
it would be 62 m/h. You probably
Michelle won’t get a speeding ticket using the
shortcut formula, but you never
716-835-9454 know.