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.
Although Craig Conley’s delightful little book A Dictionary of One Letter Wordscontains an entry for every letter of the English alphabet, the only two (aside from “a” — an article), that get used with any regularity seem to me to be the ubiquitous and egocentric “I” and the “J”, which is now legal for recreational purposes in at least four states.
"I can't, Tom, I can't! My fingers are not strong enough, and my nails are broken—don't be angry with me, Tom!" From Tom Ossington's Ghost by Richard Marsh, 1898.