# Check out this ad for a Dish Network "Free Tivo"



## Karl Foster (Mar 23, 2002)

I scanned this ad from the Salt Lake Tribune this morning. It specifically says to call for a free "Tivo." The company is clearly a Dish Network seller. I found it quite humorous. If anyone feels ambitious, perhaps you should call them and have them explain how the free Dish "Tivo" works.


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## Ray_Clum (Apr 22, 2002)

Maybe a SA TiVo?


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## Karl Foster (Mar 23, 2002)

It is definitely for an integrated unit. When I called to ask about it, they said they'd have a manager call me back, and I haven't heard back from anyone. Not an earth-shaking deal, but still unethical.


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## mini1 (Jan 25, 2004)

I got a similar deal in the mail. It claimed I could get a Dish Network system with a free "exactly like Tivo" Dish DVR.


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## Mark Holtz (Mar 23, 2002)

I haven't visited the TiVo community lately, but if the advertising includes the world "TiVo", it should be brought to their attention, and the Chicago ad is clearly in violation.


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## Steve Mehs (Mar 21, 2002)

I know a little birdy who may email this to one of the TiVo employees at the TiVo Forums


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## HTguy (May 7, 2002)

FWIW, DISH Network retailers are proscribed from even using the word "TIVO" when talking about DVRs, let alone use it in any advertising. There are always some boneheads around who don't follow the rules if they even read them.

DISH won't coop any such ads and TIVO could certainly take legal action if they cared to do so. Of course, they have to see it, walk in, and see what they get when they ask for the free TIVO.


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## Richard King (Mar 25, 2002)

I can guarantee that this ad was not approved by Dish. It should also be forwarded to Dish so that it doesn't happen again.


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## Richard Chalk (Jan 4, 2004)

HTguy said:


> FWIW, DISH Network retailers are proscribed from even using the word "TIVO" when talking about DVRs, let alone use it in any advertising. There are always some boneheads around who don't follow the rules if they even read them.
> 
> DISH won't coop any such ads and TIVO could certainly take legal action if they cared to do so. Of course, they have to see it, walk in, and see what they get when they ask for the free TIVO.


I have heard that "Tivo" will be introduced to the Webster Dictionary in the next edition. The word is that it will be defined as a verb, but it would appear that it may go the way of Kleenex, Xerox, Frigidaire, Thermos, etc.

Richard


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## Cyclone (Jul 1, 2002)

Hey, this could be a DirectTV ad with the wrong Satellite dish pic being used.

BTW: I think that they can remove Frigidare from the Dictionary. I can't say that I've ever heard that one used as a verb.


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## Karl Foster (Mar 23, 2002)

It is definitely an ad for Dish as it advertises a 60-channel and 120-channel package. Directv doesn't offer either.


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## keng52 (Oct 18, 2003)

FYI Ray Clumb 'Ich bin eine Berliner.' Does not mean " I'm a jelly Doughnut." It means "I am a Berliner.You're contributing to an urban legend.Prof. J. P. Maher ([email protected]) writes: 
What did JFK say in his famous speech at the Berlin Wall? Did his interpreter muck things up? No. 
Kennedy's 1963 speech in Berlin contained no error, contrary to an apocryphal story that has appeared successively in the Reader's Digest, a letter to Newsweek, and twice on the Opinion - Editorial page of the New York Times. 
The tale is propagated by people with little or no German, with novice skills in German syntax and stylistics, or possibly people who know the language but have incompetently analyzed the matter and are prone to repeat an urban legend. Monoglot editors have authorized the publication of incompetent opinions on matters of language, including translation. These editors misunderstand both the grammar of the JFK text and the pun alluding to it. Copycats have spread the virus far and wide. 
Punsters, by adroit manipulation of contexts of situation, can precipitate in the mind a homonymous reading of a text authored with a different intention. People who know German and who remember the 1963 speech know what JFK meant; they also know that his grammar was correct and-later-the witty were able to savor a clever pun on that famous text: 
ICH BIN EIN BERLINER. 
Foreign beginners in the language have insufficient subtlety and command of the language, while ordinary native speakers lack the grammarian's expert skills to explain and demonstrate what is going on in such cases. The problem, to begin with, involves only the predicate. In subject position we get the article: consider the old song Ein Tiroler wollte jagen ['a Tyroler wanted to go a-hunting']. The claim that ethnic and other epithets preclude use of the indefinite article is absurd. The problem with predicates is more subtle. 
Learners of foreign languages tend to translate literally; the English-speaking novice learning German works from the English pattern, such as I'm an American, he's a German and comes up in German with ich bin ein Amerikaner, er ist ein Deutscher. Which is NOT grammatically incorrect. But in German stylistics one also uses ich bin Amerikaner, er ist Deutscher, without an article. 
Wo kommen Sie her ['where do you come from?]. Here one can answer aus Berlin; ich bin Berliner. The first subtlety is that the native speaker will hardly exercise this option unless his hometown is widely known: folks from small towns can't expect the world to know what a Zevener is, unless it's folk from the next village in Niedersachsen. Besides ich bin Berliner, to continue, one can equally well say ich bin ein Berliner. 
The English-speaker, so long as word-for-word translation is his wont, is struck by the predicate construction sein (bin) without the article ein, and overgeneralizes that the style with article is wrong. Not so. But unless foreigners can also use the article-less ich bin Berliner, they will never sound authentic. Both styles, to repeat, are used. Both are correct, and are not neatly opposed to each other but overlap in their usage. 
...-The evening of 14 November 1988 I heard a learned man say, when asked if he was a member of the Chicaqo German Translators Forum "Nein. Ich bin nur ein Gast hier; ich bin nur Gast." He unhesitatingly used BOTH constructions, with and without article. I had not discussed the matter with him before. 
The phrase ich bin Berliner "translates" the English I'm a Berliner. But the German construction connotes that the speaker was born in Berlin, speaks like a Berliner, manifests the stereotypical traits of a Berliner, resides there, that is, any or all of the above, though said person may have migrated, lost the accent, even left the city and/or country before acquiring speech and growing up. Theses nuances are lost in the English "translation". As a foreigner JFK was well advised to use the locution ich bin ein Berliner, since literally he wasn't one of them, but he meant to identify with the people of the beleaguered city and certainly didn't speak the language. A native son can use either construction. The native can also say ich bin ein Berliner (da kann ich nichts für [sic] ), in dialect ik bin een Berliner. The nuances here are several. 
First, one is answering to a question about his origins, all the more reason why JFK's speech writer is to be exonerated. 
Eichhoff has identified the speech writer, a master of German. The "jelly doughnut" myth looks suspiciously like the a computerized "translation". 
This leads to another nuance: ich bin ein Berliner can imply pride, and brashness. It won't be found in lessons constructed for speakers of English who are learning German.-Note the cartoon Berliner in the textbook of Moeller & Liedloff 1988: 63]: ik bin een Berlina is the Plattdeutsch equivalent of standard German ich bin ein Berliner. 
Now consider ich bin ein Wiener, Frankfurter, Krakauer, Debreciner etc. One understands here 'resident, native of Vienna, Frankfurt, Krakau (Kraków), Debrecen' etc. Now, in the context of the sausage shop of course the er-suffix is understood to denote 'one [sausage] from' the city cited, as it also refers to citizens when that's what we're talking about.-In a cheese shop Limburger designates the highly fragrant Belgian cheese.- Ein Pariser denotes not only 'un parisien', but also 'a condom.' 
Furthermore, ein Berliner is not even north German, but Rhenish (Eichhoff 1993). This is a Catholic region, not Lutheran. The pastry in question is by no means jelly-filled. It belongs to Catholic culture, a part of the Rheinland Karneval / Fasching, and has analogues shared with Catholic Austria, Poland etc. On Mardi Gras, the eve of Ash Wednesday, the treat is prepared. According to a recipe calling for no jelly, just flour, oil, and powdered sugar. These supplies are to be used up before Ash Wednesday, beginning the Great Lenten fast. 
In north Germany another elliptical term is known: ein Berliner [sc. Bündel], literally. 'a Berlin bundle.' The reference is to the cartoonist's stereotypical vagabond with his belongings tied in a bundle carried over the shoulder on a stick. 
The construction meaning 'Jelly-doughnut à la [sc. mode de] Berlin', is elliptical for ein Berliner [sc. Ballen]. I used to smile when picking up my bread and rolls at a Hamburg bakery on seeing a monumental wall-poster portraying a succulent jelly-doughnut and captioned, with a good-humored allusion to JFK's speech: 
ICH BIN EIN BERLINER. 
An excellent linguist, native and schooled speaker of German writes: "Nothing wrong with this one. It was evidently modeled on Ciuis romanus sum." 
Allusion means making a 'play' on something. The jelly-doughnut reading involves a pun, not an error. In 1963 JFK was clearly and correctly understood in the sense he wished to communicate. His text was not intended to be a pun, but lent itself to one after the fact. 
History repeated itself in the 1970s, when McDonald's, carrying coals to Newcastle, used advertisements that played on the syntax we have dealt with here, as well as with the stereotype of the Hanseatic citizenry as cold and aloof. A portrait of their product, was captioned 'Germany's most beloved hamburger ~ Hamburger': 
DEUTSCHLANDS BELIEBTESTER HAMBURGER. 
In those days I too, though born in the USA, could say 
ICH BIN EIN HAMBURGER. 
I was a Hamburger, not a hamburger.


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