CRAIG CONLEY (Prof. Oddfellow) is recognized by Encarta as “America’s most creative and diligent scholar of letters, words and punctuation.” He has been called a “language fanatic” by Page Six gossip columnist Cindy Adams, a “cult hero” by Publisher’s Weekly, and “a true Renaissance man of the modern era, diving headfirst into comprehensive, open-minded study of realms obscured or merely obscure” by Clint Marsh. An eccentric scholar, Conley’s ideas are often decades ahead of their time. He invented the concept of the “virtual pet” in 1980, fifteen years before the debut of the popular “Tamagotchi” in Japan. His virtual pet, actually a rare flower, still thrives and has reached an incomprehensible size. Conley’s website is OneLetterWords.com.
"Someone ought to write a book on spiritual case work." —Proceedings of the Annual Congress of Correction of the American Prison Association, Oct. 1922, p. 223.
Printed collections of Forgotten Wisdom diagrams are available: Volume I from Lulu and Volumes II, III and IV from Amazon. Selected posters are also available via Zazzle.
* Ellipses don’t merely omit superfluous words or mark pauses. Far from
it! In an astonishing number of cases, the ellipses illustrate a
narrative, inviting the reader to “connect the dots.” Learn more about Annotated Ellipses at Amazon.com.
Printed collections of Forgotten Wisdom diagrams are available: Volume I from Lulu and Volumes II, III and IV from Amazon. Selected posters are also available via Zazzle.
—John le Carré, The Spy Who Came In From the Cold, 1963
* Though printed in black and white, great literature is bursting with vibrant colour. In this rebus-style puzzle, color words and parts of words have been replaced with colored boxes. Try to guess the exact hue of each. Roll your mouse over the colored boxes to reveal the missing words. Click the colored boxes to learn more about each hue. Special thanks to Paul Dean for his colorful research.
* A manual for typographers published in 1917 acknowledged that there are many beautiful forms of the ampersand, yet it forbade their use in "ordinary book work." Extraordinary books are another matter. Our lavishly illustrated Ampersand opus explores the history and pictography of the most common coordinating conjunction.
* Ellipses don’t merely omit superfluous words or mark pauses. Far from
it! In an astonishing number of cases, the ellipses illustrate a
narrative, inviting the reader to “connect the dots.” Learn more about Annotated Ellipses at Amazon.com.
"Someone ought to write a book on what happened in 1977, how you can make that big of decision and keep it a secret." —United States Senate Committee on Finance, Nominations of Alicia Munnell, Michael Levy, Jeffrey Shafer, Margaret Milner, p. 17.
Which philosopher is funnier: Nietzsche or Kierkegaard?
Clue: This is according to a Kierkegaard scholar.
Answer:Kierkegaard. “Bundle together any other ten philosophers who have made a major impact in the history of philosophy. I challenge any reader to assemble a selection of humor from all of them put together that is funnier than what you find in this volume of Kierkegaard.” (The answer is in black text on the black background. Highlight it to view.)
Citation: Thomas Oden, The Humor of Kierkegaard (2004), p. 4.
- - -
Henry writes:
Now that I think of it Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Schopenhauer are pretty much the only humorous philosophers in the Western philosophical canon. Kierkegaard is a pretty funny guy; though not in a Jay Leno type of way, his is a more subtle Dennis Miller style. Nietzsche has funny lines too, though I can't imagine filling up an entire book with Nietzsche humor though. And Schopenhauer has very morbid sense of humor.
"Someone ought to write a book on the influence of that tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune." —William Bennett Munro, Personality in Politics, 1924, p. 117.
* Ellipses don’t merely omit superfluous words or mark pauses. Far from
it! In an astonishing number of cases, the ellipses illustrate a
narrative, inviting the reader to “connect the dots.” Learn more about Annotated Ellipses at Amazon.com.
"There should be a book called 'Men Have Cabinets, Women Have Shelves.' That's how I would wrap up my general view on boyfriend relationships." —Tina Basich, Pretty Good for a Girl, 2003, p. 160.
Printed collections of Forgotten Wisdom diagrams are available: Volume I from Lulu and Volumes II, III and IV from Amazon. Selected posters are also available via Zazzle.
* Ellipses don’t merely omit superfluous words or mark pauses. Far from
it! In an astonishing number of cases, the ellipses illustrate a
narrative, inviting the reader to “connect the dots.” Learn more about Annotated Ellipses at Amazon.com.
"There ought to be a book in which those who take delight in the higher branches of literature may meet and discourse to one another technically." —The Living Age, vol. 3, 1844, p. 468.
* Though printed in black and white, great literature is bursting with vibrant colour. In this rebus-style puzzle, color words and parts of words have been replaced with colored boxes. Try to guess the exact hue of each. Roll your mouse over the colored boxes to reveal the missing words. Click the colored boxes to learn more about each hue. Special thanks to Paul Dean for his colorful research.
"[John Milton's] poetry acts like an incantation. Its merit lies less in its obvious meaning than in its occult power, and there would seem at first to be no more in his words than in other words. But they are words of enchantment. No sooner are they pronounced than the past is present and the distant near. New forms of beauty start at once into existence, and all the burial-places of the memory give up their dead." —Thomas Babington Macaulay, Essay on Milton
* Ellipses don’t merely omit superfluous words or mark pauses. Far from
it! In an astonishing number of cases, the ellipses illustrate a
narrative, inviting the reader to “connect the dots.” Learn more about Annotated Ellipses at Amazon.com.
* A manual for typographers published in 1917 acknowledged that there are many beautiful forms of the ampersand, yet it forbade their use in "ordinary book work." Extraordinary books are another matter. Our lavishly illustrated Ampersand opus explores the history and pictography of the most common coordinating conjunction.
Printed collections of Forgotten Wisdom diagrams are available: Volume I from Lulu and Volumes II, III and IV from Amazon. Selected posters are also available via Zazzle.
"Somebody should write a book upon the management of not small gardens merely, but Bits of Garden. Millions of people obtain garden ground only by the morsel, and would like to make out of that morsel an occasion of rejoicing to the eye." —Charles Dickens, All the Year Round, Dec. 17, 1859, p. 174.
At the end of a sentence a period, a full stop. Peer into its darkness, a celestial sky so dark nothing is visible save the darkness itself.
Or it’s some kind of cave, an inscrutable Lascaux, a dim basement. Jazz musicians crowd beside bison hunters. Hear the shimmer of the cymbal and the erotic bleat of the saxophone, the clink of mouth-bound martini glasses, the soft murmur of warriors.
Now lean closer, look as if through the aperture of a microscope. There’s an entire city. A single swart cell. An inkwell. The birthmark of the sentence. An insect whose legs my brother removed. You raise your head and look out at the room. Black ink from a silent movie gag circles your eye.
* Ellipses don’t merely omit superfluous words or mark pauses. Far from
it! In an astonishing number of cases, the ellipses illustrate a
narrative, inviting the reader to “connect the dots.” Learn more about Annotated Ellipses at Amazon.com.
Printed collections of Forgotten Wisdom diagrams are available: Volume I from Lulu and Volumes II, III and IV from Amazon. Selected posters are also available via Zazzle.
Clue: This is according to a guide to drawing comics
Answer:Plaids. “Polka dots are funnier than checks, but plaids are even more funny. Madras plaids, however, are not funny.” (The answer is in black text on the black background. Highlight it to view.)
Citation: Suck School of Comic Art, Suck.com, (Nov. 7, 1997)
Q: I have a father in Pennsylvania, a mother in Massachusetts, a doctor in Maryland, and a direct address in Ohio. I find a warm welcome in Hawaii and self-gratification in Idaho, though I left my jelly in Kentucky. What's my condition?
* Ellipses don’t merely omit superfluous words or mark pauses. Far from
it! In an astonishing number of cases, the ellipses illustrate a
narrative, inviting the reader to “connect the dots.” Learn more about Annotated Ellipses at Amazon.com.
Printed collections of Forgotten Wisdom diagrams are available: Volume I from Lulu and Volumes II, III and IV from Amazon. Selected posters are also available via Zazzle.
Answer:“was awarded.” Lehrer uttered his most famous line when asked why he stopped writing: “Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.” Lehrer is irked when the line is often misquoted with won. He explains, “Won is not as funny as was awarded.” (The answer is in black text on the black background. Highlight it to view.)
Citation: Gerald Nachman, Seriously Funny: The Rebel Comedians of the 1950s and 1960s (2004), p. 139.
Printed collections of Forgotten Wisdom diagrams are available: Volume I from Lulu and Volumes II, III and IV from Amazon. Selected posters are also available via Zazzle.
![The Ghost in the [Scanning] Machine](/weblog/images/covers/ghost-scanning-machine.png)
