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.
Have you ever communicated something and then, too late, wished you could revise it? Joseph Smith simultaneously made a statement and a correction, bach in 1896.
"If a jelly fish could slap a rat in the face, he would do it. But he can't. He has no arms. Neither does he have a backbone." From Popular Mechanics, 1924.
Though Isis Unveiled was already taken by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, one Fydell Edmund Garrett liked the title very much and so added "very much" to his purloinment. But were they both inspired by Godfrey Higgins' more esoteric title from three years before Blavatsky's publication? Anacalypsis, an Attempt to Draw Aside the Veil of the Saitic Isis. (Higgins' title even has an inkblot in the scan we found.)
"Noises made by oysters hamper sea radio." From Popular Mechanics, 1928. Related: "Photograph noises on ships to end annoying sounds." (Works like a charm.) From Popular Mechanics, 1929.
The shape of the phone has changed over the decades, but this ad from Popular Mechanics in 1934 was prescient. The text reads, "More important than any material thing."