Does anyone else feel like...something isn't right,

[Novem5er]

It was mentioned once in another thread, but not delved deeply into. It's stupid, but it's profound. The Berenstein Bears. Yes, I spelled it how I remember it being both pronounced by countless adults and how I remember seeing it written on the page. I was raised on these books in the 80's and nearly everyone from my generation remembers it this way, yet people before and after seem to remember the correct spelling of Berenstain. While I'm sure the 80's generation is just wrong, I have a hard time understanding how an entire generation can have had the same wrong experience, across the nation, independently and for years.

[norton ash]

Google Berenstain. Look at the book covers. It's all been explained. This is the dumbest meme-argument I've ever seen on the web. Although it's just more evidence that something isn't right.

Don’t be ridiculous, it was always spelled Berenstain Bears, says son of series creators

http://news.nationalpost.com/arts/its-b ... rse-theory

[Novem5er]

Google Berenstain. Look at the book covers. It's all been explained. This is the dumbest meme-argument I've ever seen on the web. Although it's just more evidence that something isn't right.

Don’t be ridiculous, it was always spelled Berenstain Bears, says son of series creators

http://news.nationalpost.com/arts/its-b ... rse-theory

My emphasized part of your quote is exactly my point. I don't need evidence that it was always spelled Berenstain. That was easy to find. What's harder to explain is why, by my estimate, millions of people remember it differently. Barring a dimensional-shift (as has bee discussed on the Internet, hopefully tongue-in-cheek), it's hard to explain why so many people got it wrong for so many years. I spoke to my mother about it today and she confirms it was always Berenstain in her memory, but she admits that for some reason she always pronounced it Beren-steen.

Stein and Stain are not easily confused in my opinion, yet parents and teachers everywhere got it wrong and infected a generation of children with an imaginary spelling.

[Luther Blissett]

Google Berenstain. Look at the book covers. It's all been explained. This is the dumbest meme-argument I've ever seen on the web. Although it's just more evidence that something isn't right.

Don’t be ridiculous, it was always spelled Berenstain Bears, says son of series creators

http://news.nationalpost.com/arts/its-b ... rse-theory

My emphasized part of your quote is exactly my point. I don't need evidence that it was always spelled Berenstain. That was easy to find. What's harder to explain is why, by my estimate, millions of people remember it differently. Barring a dimensional-shift (as has bee discussed on the Internet, hopefully tongue-in-cheek), it's hard to explain why so many people got it wrong for so many years. I spoke to my mother about it today and she confirms it was always Berenstain in her memory, but she admits that for some reason she always pronounced it Beren-steen.

Stein and Stain are not easily confused in my opinion, yet parents and teachers everywhere got it wrong and infected a generation of children with an imaginary spelling.

I find the parallel universe / alternate reality slip explanation about 10% compelling though. Which is a lot. I believe I am almost exactly the same age as you and I suppose I always saw it as Berenstain, though I never gave it a lot of thought in my younger years. That small 10% of me feels that I always existed in this reality, while you and many others came from "somewhere else" but slipped in here, replacing your selves that were already in existence in timeline alpha.

Have you ever been to southeastern Utah?

[norton ash]

I was in southwestern Utah about a year ago, and along the Arizona strip... post- Grand Canyon visit. Got to see some Warren Jeffs fundie-mormon ghost towns, and then ate at the nicest cleanest Denny's I've ever seen in St. George... filled with shiny, happy Mormons. It was a parallel universe kinda day.

I even thought the 'Berenstain' spelling was a weird one when I was a kid, having become familiar with the 'stein' spelling I'd see in Steinway, Steinberg, Bernstein, Goldstein, etc.

[Iamwhomiam]

They do have a 'glow' about them, no? the non-conflicted ones, I mean.

It is another world. Mormons, Indians and Mexicans speaking Spanish.

Meme Not!

[Nordic]

People are dropping like flies right now. Which isn't that unusual for the holiday season, but this time it seems excessive.

I lost an old buddy of mine to cancer on Christmas Day. Then my industry lost 2 of its great old cinematographers, Haskell Wexler and Vilmos Zhigmond. Then Lemmy and Bowie. Several others not of that magnitude that I can't even think of right now. Like a friend of ours who lost her Mom. Seems the list goes on and on. A couple of nights ago I had a dream about a prominent guy in the film biz I used to know back in Denver and now I'm worried about him.

[Novem5er]

Google Berenstain. Look at the book covers. It's all been explained. This is the dumbest meme-argument I've ever seen on the web. Although it's just more evidence that something isn't right.

Don’t be ridiculous, it was always spelled Berenstain Bears, says son of series creators

http://news.nationalpost.com/arts/its-b ... rse-theory

My emphasized part of your quote is exactly my point. I don't need evidence that it was always spelled Berenstain. That was easy to find. What's harder to explain is why, by my estimate, millions of people remember it differently. Barring a dimensional-shift (as has bee discussed on the Internet, hopefully tongue-in-cheek), it's hard to explain why so many people got it wrong for so many years. I spoke to my mother about it today and she confirms it was always Berenstain in her memory, but she admits that for some reason she always pronounced it Beren-steen.

Stein and Stain are not easily confused in my opinion, yet parents and teachers everywhere got it wrong and infected a generation of children with an imaginary spelling.

I find the parallel universe / alternate reality slip explanation about 10% compelling though. Which is a lot. I believe I am almost exactly the same age as you and I suppose I always saw it as Berenstain, though I never gave it a lot of thought in my younger years. That small 10% of me feels that I always existed in this reality, while you and many others came from "somewhere else" but slipped in here, replacing your selves that were already in existence in timeline alpha.

Have you ever been to southeastern Utah?

I 100% believe that it has always been Berenstain. Too many people remember it this way and all the internet pictures I can find back that up. I have found several old newspaper and TV Guide references to the "Berenstein Bears", so it appears that people of the time were making that mistake. It's just weird that the mistake is so pervasive with so many people of our/my time. Look at any internet forum, reddit, Youtube video, and they are all now filled with comments with people remembering Berenstein.

I asked my wife this morning about it. She is a year younger and grew up on the opposite coast from me and she was 100% adamant that it was Berenstein to this day. I had to show her the pictures of Berenstain. I text my best friend from high school, who I only met as a teenager and, again, who grew up states away from me. He also had never heard of Berenstain. He laughed because his fingers kept texting Berenstein, but his phone kept auto-correcting it to Berenstain!

So it seems there are clusters of people who remember Berenstein very vividly, but it isn't a regional thing. Maybe we attract each other subconsciously. The thing that I keep going back to is that it wasn't "us" making the mistake - it was all the adults around us. We weren't little kids who just picked up the books and made up our own sounds; they were read to us by parents and elementary teachers alike. Entire classes of young children would read Berenstein bear books and all say it the exact same way. We said it so much that we must have just imagined the spelling. Now having a bunch of kids get something wrong is one thing, but then for all the adults surrounding us to independently teach us the word wrong is truly bizarre.

And southeast Utah? I don't think so. I visited the Grand Canyon once around 2003, but we stayed on the south side.

[Novem5er]

People are dropping like flies right now. Which isn't that unusual for the holiday season, but this time it seems excessive.

I lost an old buddy of mine to cancer on Christmas Day. Then my industry lost 2 of its great old cinematographers, Haskell Wexler and Vilmos Zhigmond. Then Lemmy and Bowie. Several others not of that magnitude that I can't even think of right now. Like a friend of ours who lost her Mom. Seems the list goes on and on. A couple of nights ago I had a dream about a prominent guy in the film biz I used to know back in Denver and now I'm worried about him.

Nordic, I am sorry for both your personal and professional losses recently. My wife lost her mother a little before last Christmas and it was a tough time. It's been a year since then and this holiday was an up and down journey of joy and sad remembrance. It was easier than last year and we agreed it was a good holiday for our family, but it wast still not the same as it used to be.

[Grizzly]

[Nordic]

People are dropping like flies right now. Which isn't that unusual for the holiday season, but this time it seems excessive.

I lost an old buddy of mine to cancer on Christmas Day. Then my industry lost 2 of its great old cinematographers, Haskell Wexler and Vilmos Zhigmond. Then Lemmy and Bowie. Several others not of that magnitude that I can't even think of right now. Like a friend of ours who lost her Mom. Seems the list goes on and on. A couple of nights ago I had a dream about a prominent guy in the film biz I used to know back in Denver and now I'm worried about him.

Nordic, I am sorry for both your personal and professional losses recently. My wife lost her mother a little before last Christmas and it was a tough time. It's been a year since then and this holiday was an up and down journey of joy and sad remembrance. It was easier than last year and we agreed it was a good holiday for our family, but it wast still not the same as it used to be.

I can relate. My wife lost her grandmother, to whom she was very close (closer than she was to her mother) on a Christmas Day a few years ago. I lost my own mother in December which made me hate the holidays for years (until I had kids). It's a tough time. It seems a lot of people decide to check out as the year comes to an end and the nights get really long.

[norton ash]

Real spike in the 45-60 year old men in the local obits. I can relate, but choose to continue.

[Novem5er]

We would probably ignore the holidays after our recent grief, but we do have young children, so we carry on. It actually was a good holiday in spite of everything, and a year's difference did help. The wound is still there, but it's not as fresh. Within 10 months, my wife lost 3/4th of her family. Her mom died, her brother skipped town shortly thereafter and hasn't even called, and then her grandpa died just a few months ago. Only her grandmother is still here. She has aunts and uncles and cousins, but my wife literally hadn't spoken to them in 20 years due to an old family argument. We speak to them now, but they are really just "people that we know", not family.

Her mom didn't just die; either. She was murdered, so that was kind of hard on top of it (understatement).

But we have kids, so we muddle through somehow (like the Christmas carol says) It seems a lot of us are doing just that.

[Nordic]

We would probably ignore the holidays after our recent grief, but we do have young children, so we carry on. It actually was a good holiday in spite of everything, and a year's difference did help. The wound is still there, but it's not as fresh. Within 10 months, my wife lost 3/4th of her family. Her mom died, her brother skipped town shortly thereafter and hasn't even called, and then her grandpa died just a few months ago. Only her grandmother is still here. She has aunts and uncles and cousins, but my wife literally hadn't spoken to them in 20 years due to an old family argument. We speak to them now, but they are really just "people that we know", not family.

Her mom didn't just die; either. She was murdered, so that was kind of hard on top of it (understatement).

But we have kids, so we muddle through somehow (like the Christmas carol says) It seems a lot of us are doing just that.

Whoa! Well that's intense. And a terrible thing! I'm so sorry for all of that.

[Novem5er]

We would probably ignore the holidays after our recent grief, but we do have young children, so we carry on. It actually was a good holiday in spite of everything, and a year's difference did help. The wound is still there, but it's not as fresh. Within 10 months, my wife lost 3/4th of her family. Her mom died, her brother skipped town shortly thereafter and hasn't even called, and then her grandpa died just a few months ago. Only her grandmother is still here. She has aunts and uncles and cousins, but my wife literally hadn't spoken to them in 20 years due to an old family argument. We speak to them now, but they are really just "people that we know", not family.

Her mom didn't just die; either. She was murdered, so that was kind of hard on top of it (understatement).

But we have kids, so we muddle through somehow (like the Christmas carol says) It seems a lot of us are doing just that.

Whoa! Well that's intense. And a terrible thing! I'm so sorry for all of that.

Thanks. I only came back to RigInt a few month ago, approaching the anniversary. I don't think I've specifically mentioned it since then, but everyone seems like they've been going through a rough holiday or rough year with a lot of people passing. No matter the cause, it's tough to miss someone. Sometimes the cause just adds anger to the longing. The grief is still the same for everyone, no matter. I think a sense of community helps, and this isn't a bad place to get a little of that