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.
We wonder if they make textbooks like this anymore. (Besides the ones we write, of course.) By only the fourth question, there's an elf. From The Miller-Kinkead Lessons in English, 1914. Also of interest: How to Believe in Your Elf.
As reviewer George Struijker Boudier notes, "I'm a nut for off beat playfulness that balances between nonsense and seriousness. This book (as well as most book by Prof. Oddfellow) does just that. Obviously the 'One's elf/Oneself' is the running theme here. I can see how you can look at it as lame wordplay. To me it isn't. Something weird happens if you place your personality traits, ego and whatnot in the elf of your choice. One separates one's elf from oneself. Distancing yourself from yourself is always a good way to see bigger pictures and wonder about why you're behaving the way you're behaving. It opens up new possibilities and ideas." See How to Believe in Your Elf.