
Becoming Dr. Seuss - acsillag
https://www.npr.org/2019/05/07/721005236/becoming-dr-seuss-reveals-theodor-geisel-as-a-complicated-icon
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simonebrunozzi
I grew up in Italy, left in 2008 at age ~30, and been living in the US since
2012. I've only barely heard about "Dr. Seuss", and had no idea who he was.

I've now read the article and it seems that he's been an important figure for
many Americans, and possibly for many people around the world (not much in
Italy).

In the article a multi-faceted figure emerges, as if you wouldn't be able to
guess much of it just by reading his books (e.g. he didn't have kids; and
considered writing for kids a step down in his career).

I find it always fascinating to "discover" an artist (writer, painter,
musician, etc) by knowing his biography and reading about his personality, and
then to look again at his artwork in a very different light. I guess it's the
case for the ones who've read his books and will have a chance to read his
biography.

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m463
I vividly remember the weird artwork of "I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla
Sollew" as a kid.

Also prominent in my memory were: The Cat in the Hat, Green Eggs and Ham and
Fox in Socks.

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smoyer
Hey all you nerds ... always remember that it was Dr. Seuss who coined that
term (who'd want to be called a geek their whole career?)

~~~
RickJWagner
I thought 'nerd' originated with 'Happy Days'.

Was it really Dr. Suess?

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jklp
I doubted this too but a quick wikipedia search proved parent correct

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nerd#Etymology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nerd#Etymology)

~~~
kbutler
Digging a little deeper into Google N-Grams was enlightening in a different
way:

[https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=nerd%2Cnerds&y...](https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=nerd%2Cnerds&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cnerd%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cnerds%3B%2Cc0)

There are lots of "nerd" occurrences before 1950!

However, looking a bit deeper:

[https://www.google.com/search?q=%22nerds%22&lr=lang_en&tbs=l...](https://www.google.com/search?q=%22nerds%22&lr=lang_en&tbs=lr:lang_1en,cdr:1,cd_min:1/1/1925,cd_max:12/31/1949&tbm=bks&ei=fR_UXMiaJLSr0PEPxOCT6AY&start=0&sa=N&ved=0ahUKEwiIzYjsu47iAhW0FTQIHUTwBG04ChDy0wMIXA&biw=1600&bih=1098&dpr=1)

These occurrences break down into a few categories:

\- mis-recognition of "needs" or "herds", etc. \- incorrect date assignment \-
possible foreign words

If you also found this interesting, I guess we both fit in Dr. Seuss's zoo.

~~~
c0vfefe
That'll happen with most N-gram searches.

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thrower123
I did not know he was a Casque and Gauntlet character. Probably would not be
now - it's shifted ridiculously to the SJW types, and is incestuous to a
degree unimaginable.

I still cannot believe that the incredible teaching hospital there is now the
Dr. Seuss Medical school.

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empath75
I find it difficult to believe that anybody still says ‘SJW’ and expects
anyone to take them seriously.

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thrower123
I guess I could say insufferable self-important activist busybody, but at the
time, Social Justice was a hot buzzword that people would claim to be
embracing unironically. This was before GamerGate and the general escalation
of nastiness on the internet.

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RickJWagner
Dr. Seuss, racist and misogynist (at least according to the author.)

I've read and loved several of his books, as have many kids of all kinds. I
think it's best to just judge him on his excellent children's books and not
flame his memory with today's outrage police.

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imglorp
To our credit, Western culture has shifted in only 50 years from high public
acceptance of racism and misogyny to almost none. In that time, we went from
Rosa Parks to minority and female politicians, astronauts, SCOTUS judges, etc.
We all grew up with Dr Seuss in the former group. I remember hearing the N
word plenty of times growing up from my peer group's parents and it's almost
gone now. At the time socially conscious people were more concerned with nukes
(Green Eggs) and logging (Lorax).

So don't whitewash the history and don't bury the babies with the bathwater,
that was him but it wasn't perceived as good or bad at the time.

Now we've shifted from racial tribalism to ideological. This time seems
dangerous too.

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c0vfefe
> nukes (Green Eggs)

Think you mean the Butter Battle.

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imglorp
Ah, both maybe.

I can't find a reference, but I'd heard somewhere Sam-I-Am was a thin metaphor
for Uncle Sam, trying to convince the public to accept green (ie nuclear
glowing) eggs and ham as normal and acceptable in exchange for the benefits of
nuclear bombs and power.

~~~
c0vfefe
Perhaps, but the existence of apocryphal Seuss stories seems likely as well.

