This piece includes misquotations from The Sugar-Plum Tree and Other Verses by Eugene Field. Graphics are adaptations of versions by Fern Bisel Peat. The Saalfield Publishing Company, 1930
&
Was inspired by Steven Pinker's Words and Rules: The Ingredients of Language [Basic Books, 1999]
The most common verbs in English are: be (39,175 occurrences in a million words of text); have (12,458 occurrences in a million words of text); do (4,367 occurrences in a million words of text); say (2,765 occurrences in a million words of text). (p 123).
&
Music courtesy of Classical Midi Archives: G. Pollen's midi version of Pyoty Ilich Tchaikovsky's
Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies
&
For my Mother
who taught me all the words you have to memorize.
***
***