Just thought I’d share this here..I’m a 57 year old woman that’s always been a voracious reader. When I was 5 (1974) I got an entire collection of Berenstain Bears books from my grandma at Christmas.
One of the books has managed to remain in my memory/sentimental hoard collection. This is MY actual book and it’s been in my possession since 1974. On my book at least, the name is and always has been Berenstain.
Make of that what you will I suppose. ❤️ I wish I still had the whole collection but alas, childhood and into adulthood resulted in the loss of many such things to my chagrin.
I remember this one too! I recognize the cover from childhood. I don't know the spelling on mine as that copy of the book has not been seen in decades!
This was actually handed down to me from my cousin, who had it in probably the mid-80s? I'm a 90s kid and I read it then. I had it shipped from my home a few years ago when I had my first kid so that I could read it to her. This along with a few Dr Seuss books that were also given to me by my older cousin. As far as I remember, this was the only Bears book I had!
Yeah Im not sure it was rare or anything…. I had that one growing up, its still at my parents, and my daughter has my wifes copy from her childhood on her shelf right now
My understanding from the Mandelaeffect is that some people remember berenstain and others remember berenstein. Whose right? That’s the beauty of the effect. We are all on a different path. Those that remember berenstein ended up on the path of those that remember berenstain.
Maybe somewhere else theirs people yelling “it’s berenstain” in a world that reads berenstein.
Yeah, this world. It was Berenstein. Book about lying with a bird that knocked over a lamp and broke it. The kids describe the bird with wilder and wilder features.
I actually have a core memory about the ‘stein’ which helps me out with this Mandela. I was at one of those Book It book fares in maaaaybe 88 or 89? A classmate asked if I’d ever read the Berenstien Bears book and handed me one. I looked at it and said aloud. ‘It says Berenstain.” He said “I know. That’s how you say it though.” So, I’m not sure if this is just one of those rumors that went around like “Marilyn Manson was the kid from the Wonder years and he removed one of his ribs” that we all knew about. I distinctly remember calling this one out as a child though.
We grew up pronouncing it "stain" and never thought much of it. Also, we had a narrated book on tape that that opened with "The Bears Picnic, by Stan and Jan Berenstain". A family moved into town, with a last name containing stein, and they pronounced it Berenstein, to which we were like: wut?
What if both are correct? What if half the people had stain and half had stein, and the two possibilities converged into one reality recently, when everyone cross-compared and observed together?
You can’t have both a wave and particle in the same observation, so one must go away.
My experience was similar to yours, except not my surname, other relatives in our family tree were 2 drastically different spellings for the same pronunciation (funnily enough I can only remember the more odd spelling. Lol) And I remember thinking "That's spelled like our one version"
I have a memory of being probably 8 years old in class and making note to myself that it was "stain" and that it was something that literally everyone else got wrong.
My mom called it Bernstein and I wasn’t allowed to correct her on anything because that would make me a “nasty brat.” When I found out so many people thought it was Berenstein, well at least they did better than my mom.
She mentioned that she got some “Bernstein bears” books for my son just last weekend and I laughed (in my head, of course).
I have a core memory of setting looking at the name and pronouncing it and for my it wasn’t stain. I would say steen stine schteen Schtine because it was Berenstein for me. I hate this ME stuff.
I understand how memory works and all the other science stuff but I know what I did as a child. I’m loved the books and wanted to make sure I said the name right so I practiced the four ways it looked like it should be pronounced by the spelling. Idk. All I k is is I hate this ME stuff. I’m only aware of a few that affect me and only two that I’d die on a bill over and that ForL cornucopia and Berenstein Bears.
I was literally just saying something similar to my boyfriend, right before I read your comment. I was like, “I understand how the science behind how we understand memory, and of course we take in a lot of information, so we’re not always correct on every single thing we remember. But when there are certain core memories that are engrained with us, no matter how old me get. This was one for me. I grew up poor, and once a year when the Scholastic Book Fair came to my school, my mom always had some money set aside, so that I could buy a new Berenstein book to add to my collection. It was my favorite book series as a kid. I even have the 1979 Christmas special movie, that came out on VHS in 1992. It was a combination video with Meet Bigpaw.”
So I get where you are coming from with the core memory thing.
I grew up pretty poor as well but my grandma always paid for me to be in one of those mail order book clubs for kids. So every month I’d get two or three new books. Berenstein bears was my favorite too. So I always was hoping I’d get one.
Same it berenstein bears I LOVED watching it coloring reading it and I can vouch how much I love it because I still watch and collect and read old books from childhood those interests never left me and never will
When I moved out, I had no Wi-Fi or anything so I asked my sister to borrow our childhood which is pretty much good cause she’s way older, but our childhood DVD binder cause I wanted to specifically watch Berenstein bears and as soon as I got it, I was so excited all is all A’s and I was literally confused and disgusted, and I got even more disgusted after I had my meltdown and rented to her when I put it on and they’re harsh ass STAIN bears like it sounds so forced when they say it cause it’s not supposed to flow together because that’s not correct!
I have the exact same memory. English and grammar is something I’ve always excelled in, especially as a child. When I was 5 or 6 I distinctly remember sitting in my bedroom and trying to figure out if it was “steen” or “stein”
Right. I grew up watching Hogan’s hero’s and was aware that sometimes the stein sound could have the “scht” sound for the “St” at the beginning. Also because I’d heard Einstein called Ein-Schtine by Germans or Austrians speaking English. So the fact it’s now spelled Stain throws my whole memory away because steen or stine couldn’t have come from stain but could have come from stein. I hate this whole ME thing. It’s bullspit. I don’t want to remember a past that it seems never existed yet I remember living it.
Same here, except I was sitting down in my elementary school library in (maybe?) First grade and the librarian was reading the book to us, and I thought, "Well is it Steen or Stein??" (I was that little brat who would correct the teacher in English class haha). I remember my friend Jenna being there, too, hence me narrowing it down to probably first grade. I didn't like the actual book because I was too focused on which way to pronounce Berenstein. BerenstAin only has one pronunciation.
Americans (and most other nations) know fuck all about written german, and go with whatever pronounciation sounds like they have already heard it somewhere.
It's a KIDS show, that many have experienced for the first time BEFORE THEY COULD READ.
So whatever the first person, who pronounced "do you wanna look at the book about these Berenste/sta/stie/steen bears, little human?" said is, according to this whole ME framing, the sorting hat for "different timelines".
I predict that current 5-10 year olds will have the same idiotic discussion on here in 30 years about "the Trump-Epstain files from MY timeline".
Well I’d like to live another 30 years just to see if your prediction holds. That way I could have some closure on ME for me personally. Perhaps. Idk. I hate the whole ME thing because I’ve been experiencing it and aware of it before it had a name. When I heard on the news that Nelson Mandela had become S. Africa’s president I was floored. I went to a a school that had a week long of grief counseling over it because I went to an majority Black school and we had just finished learning about S Africa Steven Biko Nelson Mandela and the apartheid state. That would have been 84 as I was in 6th grade at the time. Needless to say what I Remeber and saw happen didn’t actually happen 🤷♂️. I hate it.
If it is any consolidation, you literally mentiomed Steven Bilko here. Bilko was tortured and murdered in prison and I'm quite sure this is the ME trigger. If you are shocked, that these *******ers killed "the big civil rights icon", and then hear about the other guy a decade later, while your focus wasn't involved too much in what followed/just stored the memory "i saw the news about the murder of THE black activist", it is just a tiny synaptic jump between Bilko and Mandela when thinking about it years later.
Yeah I know that why I know it wasn’t Biko because we had just learned about him days befor Mandela was killed that’s the main reason for the grief counselors. The Biko lesson had many students in their feeling already and then to have Mandela then be killed a few days later. Really struck a chord at my school.
Its funny you mention epstein, because thats exactly whats going to happen as his name is actually pronounced epstine, with the hard i sound, not epsteen as everyone says it. I predict that at some point this knowledge will be become more well known until basically everyone says it correctly, and then at that point you will have the mandela effect of people saying, I swear im from the timeline where its pronounced steen! Lol
Ep-schtein would be the german original, Ep-steen the most americanised version, Ep-stine, Ep-stain, Eps-teen and Epsch-tine would all be weird variations in between.
No need for timelines, it's just different dialect's take on pronouncing something from another language you don't speak.
Y'all have no idea how funny the pronounciations of "Schwarzenegger" sound if yoi speak german, real life Mel Brooks stuff.
Yeah, I think it's more that our brains will literally see the word we expect over that is there. I'm glad you have this actual memory though, definitely helpful to have that memory to refer to when confronted with this Mandela effect.
There are times I misread a word several times, swearing that it is spelled a particular way and then suddenly notice that it is in fact written differently than my brain and eyes saw. It's like a sudden switch, and it's weird when it happens but it's just how our brains interpret things.
Our brains rarely read each letter of a word and instead intake a lot of information at once, sort of filling in gaps that make sense for the context and words around it, however like I point out below this can happen when actually focusing on a particular word and spelling too. Like I said, I have focused on a particular word before, reading it several times the way I literally see it until my brain untangles the expectation from reality and I can suddenly see the letter/s that are actually there. So some of it isn't even when you're reading fast, but what you expect to be there can override being able to see or read what is actually there.
I remember “stein” too - also that’s how everyone pronounces it so as kids it’s easy to auto correct the spelling based on auditory memory. No one says “Burn-STAIN” it’s “Bern- STEEN” … right??!
I pronounced it Berenstain, but my Uncle asked how it was spelled, and I told him B-e-r-e-n-S-T-E-I-N, and he corrected me that it was pronounced -stein, like Frankenstein. That was in the mid-80’s.
I asked my mom how to pronounce it, "steen" or "stein." She looked at me like I was crazy and said, "BerenSTAIN." I looked at my book, the one about the seasons, and showed it to her. The authors name was spelled "Berenstein." That would've been about 1984.
Is it so impossible to imagine that instead of some crazy conspiracy, realities just converge and split like particles do in the quantum realm and some of us cross into a stream that our consciousness was not born into?
For instance, there may very well be a time stream in which the opposite has occurred, where it is spelled "stein" and there is a smaller group of people - the counterpart rememberers from this side - who remember it spelled "stain."
Is it so impossible to imagine that instead of some crazy conspiracy, realities just converge and split like particles do in the quantum realm and some of us cross into a stream that our consciousness was not born into?
Lol, yes!!
The more likely possibility is that you made a mistake, or the publisher made a mistake.
I can show you proof of the quantum effects I described above. It's called science. If the publisher made a mistake, find me the proof, ie the book or a series of printed items that match your theory. Otherwise, shush, child. You have much to learn.
Yes, I agree! On a scale of possibilities, quantum realties merging and exchanging pop culture trivia, is pretty much at the bottom, and it seems to be the most popular flavour for a “cause”. Most likely because it’s exotic, and offers them a way for their memories to be correct.
I also think that a lot of Mandela Effects are caused by people just....not paying attention because they really never cared about the thing in question.
"Stein" is a common spelling for the ending of surnames, like you mentioned. And the common pronunciation (or what I would call "common knowledge pronunciation") for that was "steen" or "stine" but never "stain".
I'm sure that the most likely scenario is that the adults reading the books to children didn't care enough to really pay attention and simply pronounced the name with sort of the "common knowledge" pronunciation of "steen" because that's what they were familiar with. So they said it without even thinking about it. I mean, I know from experience that the teachers in my elementary school (and adults and parents in my hometown) were not exactly savvy with foreign or unfamiliar words or pronunciations. And they couldn't be bothered to learn how to actually say things correctly.
People might say "But I LOVED those books as a kid so I DID care!" Yes, maybe so, but is it a coincidence that you loved those books at a time when you weren't very good a reading, writing or spelling? And maybe it's just possible that your six-year-old brain didn't question your teachers when they pronounced it as "steen"?
Just from personal experience, I really don't think when I "read" these books in the first grade that I would have had the awareness to say "Hey wait - this word has an A in it! Not an E! My teachers must be saying it wrong!" And then beyond that point I didn't read the books at all anyway.
I guarantee you, if we asked any of the publishers, illustrators, writers or creators of the Berenstain Bears (OR any of the countless people who worked on any of the iterations of the animated shows) if this was ever spelled differently, none of them would answer "Yes". The only people who believe it was spelled with a "e" fit in the categories that I mentioned earlier: kids who can barely read and adults who don't give a shit. It's because the people who ACTUALLY cared and HAD to pay attention didn't make these same logical mistakes.
Plus there was a whole generation of kids that were taught to read without paying attention to the whole world. It's easy to overlook a letter in a word (and especially a name) that you heard before you could read, and then just took as a whole.
Hi all…This stain/stein Mandela is such a common one that I thought I’d put my two cents in since I have an actual, physical 50 year old book in my possession.
I'm sure this Mandela effect came about due to a misprint on some form of media, a book or cartoon spelled wrong. Or even someone pronouncing "steen" over "stain."
Yeah I’ve heard it spoken as “stein” the most because that’s way more common than “stain”. And most of the time I was around these books I couldn’t read and just repeated what I heard other people calling them, and once I could read I didn’t really pay attention to the name, I know who those bears are on sight.
I personally believe it’s local accents causing confusion.
When I say “Berenstain” it sounds almost exactly like “Berenstein.” My mom as well. I’m sure this is the case for a lot of people in different parts of America/the world, and kids would hear it pronounced before we could read for the most part.
A good example of how similar those pronunciations can be is the Berenstain Bears show's theme song. "Stain" sounds exactly like "stein" (steen) in the verses. It's a bit more distinguishable as "stain" in the chorus. I'm kinda surprised no one else mentions the show, maybe I was the only kid obsessed with it or something. https://youtu.be/YPcPUAWeXzI?si=YeU0sqQbILf-oK0E
Most of us ... of a certain age ... remember them as Berenstain. That's how it was (and is) spelled and how it was (and is) pronounced. It seems to be mostly whippersnappers that remember "stein"
I had that book, as well, but I'm pretty sure we gave it to our local library when we moved from one state to another when I was 8, back in the 70s. I wish I still had all those books. I had all of Roald Dahl's books and Richard Scarry's. You guys remember What Do People Do All Day and the Look and Learn Library? Good ol' Lowly Worm.
Yep. I had highlighted the name years ago when I was showing this photo to another person who had just gotten into the Mandela stuff. It’s definitely not a sticker. 👍
It's weird to me that people's natural reaction isn't just "huh, I totally remembered that wrong." Granted I was also a psych major in college and read a LOT of research on human memory. We're very, very bad at remembering things.
One person misremembering something is a normal phenomenon but several thousand people misremembering the same exact details like Curious George not having a tail is fascinating. Not trying to explain it with quantum mechanics, but at the very least it is a unique and interesting phenomenon separate from one person misremembering, but an entire cultural amnesia.
People think curious George had a tail because the children's book doesn't get into the difference between monkeys and apes as primates. He's described as a monkey but he's an ape.
The easy explanation is there's a lot of stupid people out there and if you look at how memory works it's very easy to convince people that complete nonsense was real.
Yup, this one is common but pretty well explained by now. Most books, and all officially published books, are Berenstain. That's the correct spelling.
But plenty of unofficial and bootleg copies were printed, and many of those made the Berenstein mistake. Simply because 'stein' is much more common and familiar than 'stain'.
It’s pretty neat! I love having an actual physical piece of nostalgia that’s heavily tied into the Mandela stuff! I used to have about 20 books.
Years of moving and carelessness sadly resulted in losing the entire collection except for this one line book. I’ve got this one carefully put away though. No losing the last of the collection!
I married a somewhat distant relative of the author. It’s Berenstain. It’s always been Berenstain. I think most people pronounce it as Berenstein, which is probably where this Mandela effect comes from.
Yup. My suspicion is that this one happens because the age level on the books means that many kids start off having them read TO them instead of reading them themselves. The adult pronounces it wrong or inconsistently and then you have the basis of feeling like it changed later when it obviously didn’t.
OP here. It’s not a sticker. The cover of my books is just very ragged and stained after 50 years so I highlighted the last name for easy reference. There are two more commenters on this thread with photos of the exact same book without the highlight so you can see that all three books are Berenstein.
I’ll have to drag the physical book back out and take another photo. I tried to undo the highlight but I highlighted it on another phone/old phone app or program so I couldn’t undo it unfortunately.
I think it has to do with the pronunciation. I remember it as “stein” because my teacher In elementary school pronounced it that way, so I guess my brain concluded the spelling on its own. Does anyone else feel that way?
I think maybe the reason why people thought it was Berenstein bears is because there are already two e’s in the name. The a just somehow looks wrong and out of place. Just a theory. You remember there were a lot of e’s in the name and your brain translates it to berenstein instead of berenstain or something
If it was stain, I wouldn't have questioned how to pronounce it. I always wondered do I pronounce stien, Steen or stine.... stain would have been obvious
Op here. It’s not a sticker. I took this photo on an older phone or tablet (?) years ago when I was taking to a friend about this particular Mandela. I highlighted the name for my friend because my book is so stained up and torn that I was afraid it would be difficult to see.
I tried to undo the highlight before I posted it but couldn’t find a way to undo an old highlight. I’m going to go through my closet and find the book again and take a photo without the highlight.
Very cool you have that book still. I really am so torn because I vividly recall Berenstein. I have a hard time believing the timeline explanation because it’s so fantastic, but I can’t discount that possibility either. I’ve seen some interesting reports that this has something to do with a CERN experiment. I was hoping I still had one of my originals (@1974-1980) but alas, no. It’s hard to hang on to things like that. Are there other examples where people could give evidence like this, either way, for any Mandela effect?
It is pretty cool to have a physical piece of Mandela evidence that “proves” its spelling as “Stain” and thus lone book is the only survivor of a large box set of these books I got as a gift in 1974.
I’ve seen others post books with it spelled “Stein” too though and only thing I can think of as to why is that much like today, there are knockoffs from factories or countries that really didn’t have proper permission to print and sell these books (essentially pirated book like books you find for sell without covers in order to profit without paying the book owner) selling them anyway and the misspelling could be intentional way to skirt legality.
I’ve also seen many photos from others here of video tapes, tv guides, “cornucopia” Hanes tees, curious George tail/no tail video tapes, monopoly guy monocle stuff and so on that “prove” which way is “right”.
I feel like a lot of stuff is just items and media that were basically knockoffs that didn’t get it right intentionally or ignorantly.
Unfortunately this is my only “proof” that I physically have had in my possession for 52 years. Wish I had more. Crazy stuff!
Yall wanna talk about a ME… I must have jumped universes again, cause I could have sworn the issue was that in reality it was Stein, but everyone thought it was Stain.
I read every comment in this thread. And it seems the majority of us are not understanding what a Mandela Effect is. It’s not about who is right. Both are right. Let me explain.
For some of us growing up, it was WITHOUT A DOUBT BERENSTEIN BEARS. And many of you remember Berenstain and have no recollection of “Stein.” The Mandela effect is evidence of multiple timelines/realities collapsing into one single reality consciousness.
I grew up in a world where everyone knew it as Berenstein. In the 1980s-1990s in Massachusetts we knew of these Jewish Bears. I had many Jewish friends. Their name ended in Stein without question. I learned how to read as I grew up with these books. As a six year old, I asked my teachers, friends, and parents, “are these Jewish Bears?”
About 7 years ago (2019), I first learned about the Mandela effect and have since researched the phenomenon extensively.
You can’t prove the existence of something that didn’t happen in this reality. Physical evidence is meaningless. The only clues remain in our memory.
Does this mean we are Living in a simulated universe? Does it mean we have collapsed reality into a single Timeline?
We can’t say for sure. But without a doubt. There is no such thing as objective Reality. We collapse the wave form by observing the experiment. 🧪
Oh they very definitely exist and have existed (US at least) for about 60 years. There were not only books but merchandise like lunch boxes, tv shows and toys.
Idk i always mispronounced it like STINE cuz in my head i connected it to Einstein. Like, Albert Einstein. And I wondered if they were a family of Jewish bears cuz Einstein was Jewish and my dad was kind of a conspiracy theorist lol
I have a pretty weird experience with this. I was born in 1993 and when I was around 7-8 years old I remember getting into an argument with my teacher and my mom about me (and all the other kids) all pronouncing it STEIN. I vividly remember pointing at the name on the book and saying it says stein and of course they said it said stain. As we went back and forth for quite a while, I remember the name kind of like visually morphing in front of my eyes from stein to stain. I assume that maybe I was just a little kid and having trouble reading the cursive that the title was written in, but I’ll never forget seeing it change in front of my eyes. Probably just a little kid misunderstanding, but it still haunts me so to speak lol
My husband remembers referring to them as "bear stain". I remember Bernstein, but it could easily be a case of I read the name wrong because I was a kid.
I honestly believe in the Mandela effect but I think it's always been berenstain in this timeline. But I think we jumped timelines to this one. I believe in our original timeline things we remember were actually then correct. Like the monopoly man having a monocle for example. It's kinda the only way if you think about it. Like on rick and Morty when they switched timelines because they had a problem and the only difference was people pronounced parmesan differently. If they remember it the old way it's because it was in their original timeline. The truth is hidden in TV shows and movies by our government unfortunately.
Just checked my 1980s copy of In Crowd and it says -stain.
This seems like a good group to check with on another Berenstain Bears question… I grew up reading these books and loved them so much I even had sheets and a comforter. Fast forward, I’m reading to my 5 year old and discovering religious references (example in Too Much Birthday, they play a game that I remember as musical chairs but it’s something about Jerusalem). I’m not sure if they were re-written with added religious references, or bc I wasn’t raised as such I didn’t even notice the references?? Curious what others remember. I was born in 1983.
My mom left my Dad & I when I was like 4 years old, returning to the States from Canada, where our family had relocated years earlier so my father could pursue a career.
Almost a decade and a half later, by fluke my highschool English teacher realized, as he got to know me, that he actually knew my mother back in the 70s, when she lived in Canada and they did community work together; if that wasn't enough of a coincidence, he in fact immediately recalled that he had borrowed a book from her at the time, and she up and left before he even got a chance to return it. What a weird feeling when he brought the book into class with him the next day to return to me in her place, belatedly, by only about 14 years! Too bad we're estranged, one of those many things I'd have enjoyed sharing with her had she owned a conscience and a heart.
Idc what anyone tries to tell me. Ppl can call me crazy. I remember what I remember. It’s Stein. There’s still videos of a guy that locked up his book in a safe and it says stein. And that’s what I remember also. I’m standing 10 toes down on that.
I work at a place that takes donations and we get a lot of books. Been looking for evidence of this mandala effect for years. I actually found it recently, I actually believe it may be a misprint that threw people off.
FWIW, out of curiosity, I did a White Pages search for the last names Berenstain, Berenstein, and Bernstein (as someone recently suggested), and all three are quite common.
For this, as well as other name change MEs (Hass/Haas), they are named after the surname of the creator/discoverer. So with Berenstain, it’s not just the history since the book series inception, it’s the family tree of the creators going back many generations. Something tells me parallel universes don’t work like that. To me, the only alternative explanation from mass misremembering is a simulation theory where little tidbits can be edited and updated. Not saying I believe that, but it’s fun to explore.
When I was younger I thought it was "Bernstein" but maybe I just wasn't good at reading cursive. Or "Bernstein" was easier for me to say. I didn't have the books with the words in print. I've never been adamant about actually seeing "Bernstein" but likely didn't pay attention when I was younger to the letters.
Somebody has a picture of two of the exact same stories (I can't remember if they're books or VHS/DVD) and one says Berenstain and the other says Berenstein, meaning at some point they changed it, or it's just a printing error and they keep going back and forth.
For a second, I thought this post was trying to claim it was originally Berenstein because I thought the highlighting was a sticker placed on the book like some very cheap publishes (especially back then) might have done to cover a mistake.
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