re: The Mandela Effect - Berenstain Bears

When you're a child and you're learning spelling, and stuff.

Read this.

quote:

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Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Ist aoubt to rian. My sihrt has a saitn.

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Now give that to someone who is reading Berenstain Bears. See any problems? They are at an age where they are still "sounding out" words to a large degree and phonetically speaking, this is the only grouping of the letters "STAIN" that sounds like "steen" or "stein".

The English language has many minor rules and exceptions, and unless our brain has those reinforced, it's not going to waste any time and energy saving that useless bit of information. Past the age of 6 or 7, you never looked at the cover of a Berenstain Bears book every again, but you've seen a lot of "steins" or "steens" haven't you? You've had a lot of people tell you there name with some like "Rothstein" or "Goldsteen", but never with "stain" on the end of it.

I bet if you did a polling of people unaware of the Berenstain Bears, a lot of people would guess:

Berenstein
Berensteen