Jenny's Noodle

The fourth-bestselling English-language children's hardcover book of all time turned fifty years old this week. Dr. Seuss' classic story of Green Eggs and Ham was first published on August 12, 1960 and continues to teach children everywhere how to read.

The book was a result of a wager between author Theodor Seuss Geisel and Bennett Cerf, his editor at Random House. At the time, Dr. Seuss had already written The Cat in the Hat using just 225 words. So Cerf wagered $50 that Dr. Seuss could not write an intelligent, entertaining children's book in just fifty words. Fifty years later, we all know the outcome of that bet.

The vocabulary of the text consists of 49 monosyllabic words with the one exception—"anywhere":

a am and anywhere are be boat box car could

dark do eat eggs fox goat good green ham here

house I if in let like may me mouse not

on or rain Sam say see so thank that the

them there they train tree try will with would you

I imagine that today Dr. Seuss would be one of the twitterati. Don't you agree?


[Source: Wikipedia]