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.
It's rare, but there's such a thing as a phobia of etiquette. "I shuddered at their extreme politeness and amiability." From Esmeralda, Or, Every Little Bit Helps by Nina Wilcox Putnam, 1918.
"Thou shalt not always wear a cross and ugly look especially in cold weather as the features may become frozen and crack. Look pleasant occasionally." From 1907.
From In the Sweet and Dry by Christopher Morley and Bart Haley (1919). It reads:
He pulled out a drawer at random—Schedule K-36, Minor Social Offenses—and ran his embittered eye over a card. It was marked Conversational Felonies, and began thus: