Entry 257: Frankenstein's Monster

Happy Halloween 2014, everybody!  And happy 40th to my sister, who was born on October 31, 1974.  The fact that she was born on Halloween used to come up from time to time as kids.  In particular, I remember sometimes she would try to fool my brother and I into believing that she was a witch, and her birthday was part of the evidence.  She would also turn this crazy Japanese robe that my dad had inside out, so that it was solid black, and wear it like a witch's gown.  She would put on a witch's hat from an old Halloween costume and hold a broom for effect.  Sometimes she would even put tape on her finger nails so that they looked long.  I never really believed that she was actually a witch, but I didn't completely disbelieve it either.  That's one thing about being a kid: There's always like 10% of you that will fall for a trick that 90% of you knows can't be possibly true.

I actually dated a girl for a while who was also born on Halloween.  This might seem like a big coincidence but it's not.  If you take just 30 people, the odds are very much (about 70%) in favor of two of them having the same birthday.  As a little experiment, go on Facebook and look at the first 30 people on your Friends list, and I bet two of them will have the same birthday.  Or you can just take my word for it.

Anyway, we took Lil' S to a block party this evening in our neighborhood.  It was pretty cool.  They had a bouncy castle that he went in immediately and probably would have stayed in the entire time had I not dragged him out so that the "big kids" could take their turns.  There was also this tunnel maze thing made out of cardboard boxes that he really enjoyed.  He would disappear into it and then reemerge at the opposite end five minutes later.  There were tons of kids in it going every which way, crawling over each other, doing who-knows-what.  It was little kid wild wild west.  Of course, Lil' S was the smallest one playing in the maze because he's only two (the average age was probably six), and he's even a bit undersized by two-year old standards.  But he can hold his own -- mostly.  Sometimes an older kid will do something to upset him, and he'll breakdown and start crying for his "amma".  There were plenty of houses around for trick-or-treating, as well, but he wasn't that interested in it.  I think he only ate two pieces of candy, which is good.  I on the other hand ate no candy.  I'm a diet -- strictly pizza and beer for me tonight.

Lil' S's costume was Frankenstein -- or Frankenstein's monster if you want to be snobby about it.  As most people know, in the original Mary Shelley novel, Frankenstein was the scientist who created the monster, not the monster itself.  The monster didn't have a name.  But people soon erroneously began calling the monster Frankenstein, and if enough people make the same language error enough times, at some point it becomes not an error.  And with Frankenstein we are way past that point.  Frankenstein is now the monster -- unless you are buying cereal, in which case it's Frankenberry.

I was trying to come up with some other words like Frankenstein that started out as misnomers and became "correct" because enough people misused them over a long enough period of time.  Here's what I came up with:

• Literally.  It now means "virtually" -- basically it's exact opposite -- because so many people say things like, "In DC, the primary is the only important election because literally everybody is a Democrat," which is something I overheard the other day.
• Irregardless.  It means regardless.
• Poser.  When talking about a phony, it should be poseur.  But in many dictionaries poseur is given as a definition for poser, because so many people misused it.  By the way, remember when calling somebody a poser was an insult of highest order?  I feel like a large part of my youth was spent making sure I wasn't wearing the wrong clothing brand (e.g., Vision Street Wear), so that I wouldn't get called a poser.
• The Terminator.  This one doesn't really fit and it requires some explanation.  A few years ago on the NFL training camp show Hard Knocks, the New York Jets had a fullback in camp named John Conner.  Because of his name and the fact he could hit really hard, his nickname became "The Terminator".  But, of course, in the movies, John Connor was a human not a Terminator.  So John Conner's nickname should have been "man" or "Edward Furlong" or something like that -- "The Terminator" doesn't actually work.

• Paper.  The paper is actually the thing you write on, not the implements that you use to write with...  Okay, this one is only for Lil' S.  When he wants to draw or color (i.e., scribble), he'll point to a pen or his crayons and say, "paper ... paper ... paper".  But he calls paper paper too.  I think he just thinks everything related to drawing is called paper.  Whatever the case, it's pretty darn cute -- except when he starts drawing all over the couch with his paper.  We can only flip the cushions once. 

OK, that's all I got for tonight.  Oh wait, one more thing.  My friend from college Barb Honchak is defending her Invicta 125-pound championship belt tomorrow.  I'm going to see if I can stream the fight without buying the entire UFC Fight Pass -- maybe I can just get a free trial or something.

Anyway, until next time ...