Another early childhood word association was my brother's who's old enough to remember World War II. He thought Germans were Germ Men. That's because our Mom was always worried about germs infecting us, and he thought the ultimate scary thing would be germs as big as men. The thought that Britain was at war with Germ Men made complete sense to him. The germs even killed one of his playmates. He was playing in the Padstow school yard, fell down and grazed his knee, and died of tetenus which we called lock jaw back then.