Chances are if you’re reading this post, you’re a literate person– and in English, moreover. Otherwise this text would look sort of like լիզում իմ ոտք ունեցող մարդ. But how did you get that way? What sets you apart from the throng of people who just don’t understand the symbolic interpretation of glyphs on a page?
If you were born after 1957, there’s a good chance Seuss’s The Cat in the Hat was a part of your journey to literacy. What’s remarkable about the book is that there are only 236 different words used in the whole work!
As this wouldn’t be a proper clickbait story without a list… here are all 236 of them.
- A
- About
- After
- All
- Always
- And
- Another
- Any
- Are
- As
- Asked
- At
- Away
- Back
- Bad
- Ball
- Be
- Bed
- Bent
- Bet
- Big
- Bit
- Bite
- Book
- Books
- Bow
- Box
- Bump
- Bumps
- But
- Cake
- Call
- Came
- Can
- Cat
- Cold
- Come
- Could
- Cup
- Day
- Dear
- Deep
- Did
- Dish
- Do
- Dots
- Down
- Fall
- Fan
- Fast
- Fear
- Fell
- Find
- Fish
- Fly
- For
- Fox
- From
- Fun
- Funny
- Game
- Games
- Gave
- Get
- Give
- Go
- Gone
- Good
- Got
- Gown
- Had
- Hall
- Hand
- Hands
- Has
- Hat
- Have
- He
- Head
- Hear
- Her
- Here
- High
- Him
- His
- Hit
- Hold
- Home
- Hook
- Hop
- Hops
- House
- How
- I
- If
- In
- Into
- Is
- It
- Jump
- Jumps
- Kicks
- Kind
- Kinds
- Kite
- Kites
- Know
- Last
- Let
- Like
- Lit
- Little
- Look
- Looked
- Lot
- Lots
- Made
- Make
- Man
- Mat
- Me
- Mess
- Milk
- Mind
- Mother
- Mother’s *
- My
- Near
- Net
- New
- No
- Not
- Nothing
- Now
- Of
- Oh
- On
- One
- Our
- Out
- Pack
- Pat
- Pick
- Picked
- Pink
- Play
- Playthings
- Plop
- Pot
- Put
- Rake
- Ran
- Red
- Rid
- Run
- Sad
- Said
- Sally
- Sank
- Sat
- Saw
- Say
- See
- Shake
- Shame
- She
- Shine
- Ship
- Shook
- Should
- Show
- Shut
- Sit
- So
- Some
- Something
- Stand
- Step
- Stop
- String
- Strings
- Sun
- Sunny
- Tail
- Take
- Tall
- Tame
- Tell
- That
- The
- Their
- Them
- Then
- There
- These
- They
- Thing
- Things
- Think
- This
- Those
- Thump
- Thumps
- Tip
- To
- Too
- Top
- Toy
- Trick
- Tricks
- Two
- Up
- Us
- Wall
- Want
- Was
- Way
- We
- Well
- Went
- Were
- Wet
- What
- When
- White
- Who
- Why
- Will
- Wish
- With
- Wood
- Would
- Yes
- Yet
- You
- Your
* An inflection on “mother” rather than a new word, although you could argue that the inflection makes it a new word, because morphemes. If you really want to have that argument, and you actually counted to notice that there were 237 entries on this list, you need to become a linguist. Now. Before your head explodes.
ADAM WEISHAUPT is a Professor of Law at the University of Ingolstadt. His hobbies include rationalism, masonry, and opposition to Kantian idealism.
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