My Brother Was Bored and Tallied the Words in Green Eggs and Ham...
My brother has always liked to count things. (Years ago he figured out that may parents were married for 10,000 days, so we threw them a 10,000 day anniversary party, for example.) He recently had surgery on his shoulder and is off work for a few weeks and apparently he's making the most of the extra time by doing things like counting the number of times each word appears in Green Eggs and Ham. Here's his word tally. (It's Seuss' birthday month, after all.)
- 85--I
- 84--not
- 61--them, a
- 44--like
- 40--in
- 37--do
- 34--you
- 26--would
- 25--eat
- 24--and
- 21--will
- 19--Sam, with
- 15--am
- 14--could
- 11--here, green, eggs, ham, the
- 9--train, there
- 8--or, anywhere, house, mouse
- 7--on, dark, box, car, fox
- 6--tree
- 5--so, say
- 4--me, may, be, goat, see, rain, try, let
- 3--boat, that
- 2--are, good, they, thank
- 1--if
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8 comments:
Your brother may also find the Green Eggs & Ham Cookbook a good way to pass the time -- "Yots in Pots and Schlottz's Knots, Who Roast Beast, "Fritz-Fed Fred" Food Feast, Moose Juice and Goose Juice -- Recipes inspired by Dr. Seuss"...
Very funny post...He may just start counting the hair on his arms to pass the time.
Best wishes for his speedy recovery,
Donna McDine
And here's what I love: that incredible, famous, fortune-making book only has FIFTY different words in it. Most people can't write three complete sentences with only that many words. Seuss was pretty remarkable.
Hope your brother gets better soon.
One of my sons wrote a college entrance essay on Green Eggs and Ham
This made my day.
Amazing how rich that book is with a vocabulary of just 50 words.
Nice to hear about someone else besides my granddaughter who is 'obsessive' with counting and loves to do it. She comes up with complicated systems of numbers about everything, counts steps and how many times the cat breathes...well that's a little exaggerated, but she's only 11. She will love the article about Green Eggs and Ham and the numbers...loves the book and loves counting.
great interview thanks Alice!
Yep... that's my dad!
Did you know that someone bet Seuss that he wouldn't be able to write a book using 50 words or less. That's how Green Eggs and Ham came about.
Glad I also got the quirky little gene. He told me what had done one day to pass the time and I replied that I always wondered how many words the book actually conatined. I love your blog.
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