Dick & Jane

Pearson Education holds the copyright to Dick and Jane books. Now it is suing various companies and people over the publication of Yiddish With Dick and Jane which "uses the familiar rhythms of the original 'Dick and Jane' primers" (from the back cover blurb). 'Dick and Jane sentences' is an epithet often applied to writers who use, or overuse, simple declarative sentences. "See Spot run," Dick said about his dog. It is the journalistic style of Hemmingway, who was not prone to vague, involved, or terribly intellectual prose. "Too many Dick and Jane sentences," one of a book club members declared about one month's read. A few others murmured agreement. What's wrong with Dick and Jane sentences, I wondered aloud. "Boring!" they said.

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