There’s a story they tell—I don’t know if it’s exactly true—about a bet between a publisher and a writer. The publisher, Bennett Cerf of Random House, bet the writer, Theodore Geisel, 50 bucks that he couldn’t write a kids’ book using these ­50 really short words:

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

Geisel wrote the book. It’s about a cat (is he a cat? He looks like a cat) who wants his friend to eat some food. The