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.
You've heard of coffee-table books, but here's a New England farmhouse's autobiography. And just in case you couldn't believe it, the subtitle reassures that it's "A Book." (The Autobiography of a New England Farm-house: A Book by Nathan Henry Chamberlain, 1864.)
"It takes turkeys a while to catch on in life" (Michael Zitz, "Wild over Turkey," The Free Lance-Star, 1990). A postcard from Rockingham County, Virginia, c. 1940.
We hear of Puritanism's lingering influence in the United States, but as recently as 1948, Illinois dairy farmers were weaning themselves off the wizardry of Druidism. Here's a headline that "You don't need a Magician" for high milk production. From the Illinois Agricultural Association Record, 1948.
In the famous nursery rhyme, the little lamb gets all the credit for following Mary everywhere, but this 1896 illustration sets the record straight: Mary's sheepdog deserves some acclaim for directing the action.