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Poor Frankenstein

Names can get mixed up, too. Real or fictional people can become legends, or end up garbled and forgotten. A classic case is poor Frankenstein. If you're picturing the big lumbering monster with the bolts in his neck ... oops. Frankenstein was the doctor who created the monster. The monster was simply known as "the monster" or "Frankenstein's Monster."

Strangely, "Franken-" has become a prefix on its own. I've heard big ugly things named that way, from a Frankencouch to a Frankenpuppy. I wonder if this was urged along by the old FrankenBerry cereal? Sure is a weird thing to make a prefix out of, especially considering the original Franken- thing was not a monster, but a mad scientist. Now, where does Al Franken fit into all this?
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  1. AnonymousAugust 8, 2010 at 5:10 PM

    A great deal of misunderstanding has arisen from that tale, it seems, besides the name.

    You mentioned "FrankenBerry," and I just stumbled across that character's role in the comic Breakfast of the Gods.:
    http://www.webcomicsnation.com/poyorick/botg/

    Congratulations on the Book of Tentacles! I've written a couple of hundred thousand words about future evolved octopuses, including the poetry for their funeral services. I look forward to reading the collection.

    ===|==============/ Level Head

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  2. scott veeApril 23, 2012 at 3:31 PM

    Thanks, Level. Looking back at this now, Fat Albert would be Franken-Al ! The same thing has happened with "Moby". Moby Dick was a really big Dick, I mean whale. (Darn language!) And now you can tack "Moby" onto other things. Like the band Moby Grape. I used to doodle all kinds of "mobies" (I hope that never becomes a word) in my notebooks in high school. I even once made a pillow in a Home Economics class shaped like a flatworm, called ... Moby Worm. Yes, the teacher was appalled, but it met the requirements, so ha.

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