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.
"The excited neighbors, hearing her singing rude songs, came flocking about her." From The Essentials of the English Sentence by Elias H. MacEwan, 1900.
"The pessimist, instead of hoping that tomorrow's skies will be sunny, prefers to remember that yesterday's skies were clouded." From Manual and Diagrams to Accompany Metcalf's Grammars by Carl Garrison, 1901.
"I dread the toil of dropping buckets into enpty wells, and growing old in drawing nothing up." From The Essentials of the English Sentence by Elias H. MacEwan, 1900.
"Victor Hugo declared that he was sure he should live beyond the grave, because he felt his soul to be full of hymns and poems he had not had time to write." From Manual and Diagrams to Accompany Metcalf's Grammars by Carl Garrison, 1901.
"No man of sense ever took any pains to appear wise, as no honest man ever used tricks to display his own integrity." From Brown's Language Lessons by Henry Kiddle, 1889.
"Next to the illusion that money can confer happiness, is the illusion that the giving of money is the only form that practical helpfulness can take." From Manual and Diagrams to Accompany Metcalf's Grammars by Carl Garrison, 1901.