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, a “monk for the modern age” by George Parker, 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.
Our anagram recalls that episode of Seinfeld in which George tires of office Christmas parties and saves money by giving everyone a certificate that a donation has been made in their name to the (fictitious) Human Fund:
We disagree with [The Magnetic Fields'] Stephin Merritt that "do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do ... are nonsense syllables." We also disagree that "There are only two, arguably three, one-letter words" (as we elaborately demonstrate in our dictionary of one-letter words). But live and let live. And his book, illustrated by the illustrious Roz Chast, is called 101 Two-Letter Words. (Pictured below, Prof. Oddfellow measures magnetic fields in honor of Stephin Merritt.)
Leigh Hunt is apparently the only person ever to have referred to an "exactitude of toe" (easiness and endlessness notwithstanding). From The Essays of Leigh Hunt, illustrated by Henry Matthew Brock, 1903.
Inspired by the caption of this illustration from The Quiver, 1878, here's an alternative to the phrase, "As I live and breathe!": "As I stand and read!"