It seems as if the Berensteins can do no wrong, that is if their goal is to write a bunch of books with no plot whatsoever, yet are still entertaining, and in some ways amusing. Yes, I know, this is a kid's book, but shouldn't kid's books actually have a plot. Well, I guess it depends on the purpose of the kid's book. I guess the genius of these books is that they have no plot, but they teach children to read and they do it in a most entertaining way. I know that it is entertaining because I can remember as a kid I was really entertained by the books. In fact I loved the Dr Suess books (and really did not think all that much of the Little Golden books).

This story is about a bear on a monocycle and as he travels on his monocycle other bears jump onto him and then off of him, and as such it is simply a process of counting all the way through the book. By reading this books we are able to identify the words and the numbers that these words represent. I guess that is the essence of language, being able to understand the meaning of the words in a way that other people also understand them. I am sure we can easily make up our own languages (as Amy Ferra Fowler does in the Big Bang Theory – and I believe Sheldon Cooper has done it as well) but what is the point of constructing a language that nobody knows (unless that language is a computer language, and as long as a computer understands the language it is pointless whether anybody else understands it because that language is simply a way for you to communicate with a computer).

Some dude named Wittgenstein wrote a lot about language and sees it in a most unusual light. As far as Wittgenstein is concerned language is actually meaningless and the only reason language has meaning is because we attach meaning to it. Language developed as a means for us to communicate with each other, and as we seek to distinguish more things from other things, our languages grow ever more complex, but also as complexity develops, people are also lazy and end up simplifying it. As such we have new forms of language, such as the language used when sending text messages (though that has changed with smartphones where the phone can predict the word you want to use).

It was funny how many people got really upset at the use of text symbols replacing the English Language, but we must remember that this symbolic language is an organic development that allowed quick and easy communication with other people in a way that they can understand. With the awkwardness of writing a message on a mobile phone, a means of being able to do it quicker and simpler had to develop, and this, as I suggested, developed organically.

Gee, it looks like I have spiral off from a commentary on a children's book into a post-modernist view of language.