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.
"Don't hold back. Can't 'something something' on an empty stomach, y'know?" From what's arguably the greatest television show ever fashioned (but unfairly obscure outside its native Japan), Kamen Rider OOO (2010-11). Previously, we discovered eight surprising meanings of the all-vowel word OOO in this series' title.
"Scaling yonder peak, / I saw an eagle wheeling near its brow." And note that the eagle is also "wheeing." From A Practical Grammar by Stephen Watkins Clark, 1847.
From the Aurora yearbook of Manchester College, 1921. The text reads, "Christmas present. Nice Wolfe. She thinks it will be useful." See How to Hoodoo Hack a Yearbook.
Here's a positive that turned into a negative (we've had that happen, too!) from St. Nicholas magazine, 1910. The explanation posited by the magazine's Eastman Kodak representative is that the film must have been exposed to a strong light immediately after development and previous to rinising the developer from the surface and fixing.