‘See Spot Run’ was originally a children’s book, right? I thought I remembered reading it when I was a kid once. But I checked Amazon and all I can find are titles of books that parody the famous title. Everyone is familiar with the term as a basic sentence; hell, it is the basic sentence! 
But when was the original sentence written? Wikipedia has nothing…
Actually the shortest sentence in English is ‘I do.’ Married Dopers would call this the longest sentence, though…
Not exactly nothing. Try searching for “Dick and Jane”.
Thanks.
I’m Rick
I’m Rick James
I’m Rick James, bitch!
(teach your kids that one)
My Grampa taught me how to read out of the Dick & Jane reader.
I remember that the last story in the book, about the family spreading a blanket on the floor to have a indoor picnic on a rainy day, was too hard for me, and I kept getting frustrated in the middle of it and giving up.
They had fun.
You know what I’d like to see: a special on Dick and Jane: Where are They Now?
Dick grew up to realize he wasn’t the biggest Dick out there.
Jane grew up to realize she lived in a world of Dicks.
The african american kid later became the token black guy in sitcoms.
Spot gave birth to Brian from Family Guy.
I think the book was called “Fun With Dick and Jane”. The opening pages were along the lines of “See.” “See Spot.” “See Spot run.”
And now, in hardcover, the Dick and Jane compilation
I remember reading that the first word of the book was “Look”. “See” would have made a lot more sense and would have been much easier on first graders.
I loved these books. I remember them so well. My first one had a yellow cover and was all about Dick, Jane and Sally and ? (and Spot of course). My brother’s (2 years older) was blue and Dick and Jane got to do more and have more fun–so I started reading HIS book…
I know they were fairly racist, gender stereotyped and boring as hell–but to a 5 year old, they were solid gold. I really loved the illustrations–I had to wear dresses to school and I had dresses just like Sally’s–complete with sash.
Sigh. It is better now, in all ways, but I can’t hate those books.
Yeesh…is it a bad sign that I can still remember the story about Katie doing something she wasn’t supposed to and thinking she got away with it, until she heard a katydid outside the house saying, “Katy did it! Katy did it!” and ran in to confess everything to Mother?
I was looking through that compilation a few weeks ago and there was nothing racist in it. “Gender stereotyped and boring as hell” I can accept but the only thing “racist” was that everybody was white, at least until long after I used the books.
Puff! You forgot Puff, the cat! Oh, the felinity!
All this racist talk- so many people have nothing better to do than to point out that a 1950’s childrens book marketed to white america had a white family primarily (as did, what, every tv show?!) What about the fact that the book never honors WW2 veterans? And the lack of Hispanics? Let’s bring in PETA- why should we watch Spot run all the time? Let him run w/o being watched, as a dog should. Run away, Spot.
How about a literay analysis of the compilations that were posted above, done by a council of NAACP and Feminists and PETA members and Dopers? I’d buy that! 
But then again, how many decades was it until they introduced the african american characters? You may have a point… I was making observations, not ranting.
I would be remiss not to point out SomethingAwful’s Friday Photoshop feature for this week…