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.
Interesting to see a musical score depicted flat on the ground, with the bar serving as a net in a game and the notes as players. From the State Female Normal School's 1903 yearbook.
You noticed how dumbed-down movies are, and here's why -- the dictionary ran out in 1934. In case viewers couldn't follow the simple statement, both the projection room and dictionary are labeled. The artist put the book title on the back cover. From The Film Daily, 1934.
In the early 1950s, Kellogg's Tony the Tiger proclaimed, "They're great!" But MGM's Leo the Lion was doing it two decades earlier. From The Film Daily, 1934.