Monday, April 11, 2011

Dr. Seuss

have any of you every wandered where the word "blog" came from? Mrs. S and i were talking about it and we didn't know. but it is a really odd word. i mean really blog?? so she asked mr. S and he said it was in one of Dr. Seuss' books! its true! thats like the neatest thing. Dr. Seuss came up with the word blog, which i am using right now!

some interesting facts about Dr. Seuss (prounced "Zoice" not "Soose") Suess is his mothers maiden name and also his middle name. Theodore Seuss Geisel -his friends called him Ted- said that the name Dr. Seuss was because he was saving his real name for the Great American Novel he would one day right.

When he was in college he got put on "probation" and he was not aloud to edit the Jack-O-Lantern -the college's humor magazine- where he had published his cartoons. So he wouldn't get introuble he began publishing cartoons under an aliases of : L. Pasture, D.G. Rossetti '25, T. Seuss and Seuss. this was the first time he signed his work as "Seuss"

As a magazine cartoonist, he began signing his work under the title of "Dr. Theophrastus Seuss."  he soon shortened that name to "Dr. Seuss." the is where most americans pronouced it soose not zoice. so thats how Ted Geisel became Dr. Seuss

you ask where did the Dr. come from? he was not a doctor. he did consider a Ph.D. in english once. after he graduatied from Dartmouth. he went to Oxford. he studied literature there. studied.. would be used as a loose term. his notes were of some lectures, but they had more doodling than anything else. one day after a class he one classmate Helen Palmer look at his notebook. "your're crazy to be a professor. what you really want to do is draw." she told him "That's a very fine flying cow!"

soon after they got engaged and she finished her M.A. They retured to the U. S. and he became a cartoonist!


In 1955, Dartmouth gave him his first honorary doctorate. he woudl receive serveral more honorary degress, including one from Princeton. by pursuing his love of drawing, Ted Geisel bacme of the the few people to earn a Ph.D. by dropping out of graduate school!

in his book "if i ran the zoo" published in 1950 it is the first recorded instance of the word "nerd" lol

Bennett Cerf, Dr. Seuss' editor, bet him that he could't write a book using 50 words or less. "The Cat in the Hat" was pretty simple, and it used 225 words. Not one to back dwon from a challege, mr. Geisel stated writing and came up with "green eggs and ham" which used exactly 50 words!

In his book "Scrambled Eggs Super!" you find the word blog. this book was published in 1953, so if you are ever debating on who invteted the word "blog" be sure to give him credit. :)

3 comments:

Kristen said...

yea! I like the post Kimmy! You did a good job! Very productive for your first day of Spring Break. What about the rest of the week?

Sandy said...

ha...that is pretty neat.

Jessica Curtis said...

Very interesting. :)