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.
As if in anticipation of the birth of the interrobang (‽), the exclamation point/question mark combo was laid to rest in 1836, as we learn in Prose and Verse by William James Linton.
Here's a precursor to the Dial-A-Joke telephone service phenomenon. From Athens Female College's Oracle yearbook, 1912. (For some unbelievably weird yearbook imagery, see our How to Hoodoo Hack a Yearbook.)
"'You were paid 200 pounds per year,' she retorted, 'for doing nothing, except keeping a door locked, and feeding a half-mad woman." From Thrilling Life Stories for the Masses, 1892.
Carrier pigeons get all the glory as postal carriers, but we learn here that "chicken mail" required a self-addressed, stamped envelope. From St. Nicholas magazine, 1900.
