{once there really was a man named joseph (john) merrick}

Its incredible the way our brain works and the process of how we save information, regardless of whether the information is accurate or not. And thanks to the media, we share the wrong data with generation after generation. A clear and very famous example of this is the famous line in Casablanca "Play it again, Sam"... Bogie never said that! Wikipedia refers to it as a "misquotation", I call it, someone made a mistake once and it took like 100 years for someone else to check out the fact that he actually said: "Play it, Sam". Funny thing is, despite this correction being made, we still use the original quote on our everyday lingo! And how many more like these?! Probably thousands! 

This came to mind when a friend of mine commented on a quote in the movie The Elephant Man, directed by David Lynch. The words were something in the lines of "I am not an animal, I am a human (being)"... We couldn't remember if it ended in human or being... And his final comment regarding the veracity of the story sent my mind on a very rocky trip. Im not the type of person who can just drop something like that, so naturally I brought it upon myself to investigate. Well, for starters the quote ends in being. Phew! That´s one less thing to worry about in my life but... and here´s where it gets interesting... Ive always though this story was fictional, based on a play, and so does everyone else I know! And guess what? Its not!!! There really was an "elephant man"....

It appears as though the movie is much more accurate to the actual facts than to the play. So I suppose the term "adapted from the play" is a misquotation in itself? This is a movie from 1980, so I have been deceived for over 30 years! Im over the shock now, things had to go back to normal at some point but Im still quite intrigued by all this. Did you know, and you never told me?!

You can read all about the real thing right HERE.