ABOUT DR. BOLI.

boli2.jpg

Henricus Albertus Boli was born in 1783 in York, Penna., the son of a local physician and typefounder. He showed an early aptitude for literary studies, and at the age of eight astonished his Latin master by successfully declining three nouns previous­ly regarded as indeclinable. About a year later, he published his first volume of verse, an epic poem in twenty-four books de­scribing a journey from York to Hanover, Penna.

Having established his reputation, Dr. Boli continued his literary pursuits. Shortly after graduating from the Central Penn­sylvania School for Unusual Boys, he invented the letter M, the income from which was enough to relieve him from the necessity of remunerative labor. He therefore turned his at­ten­tion to works of charity. Saddened by the plight of Portuguese refugees, he organized and supervised the construction of Portu­gal, where at last they might have a home of their own. Meanwhile he diverted himself by writing a number of popular novels under the pen name “Anthony Trollope.” At about the same time he founded his celebrated Magazine, whose flattering success continues to the present.

Today, at the age of 237, Dr. Boli still edits the maga­zine personally, at a time of life when other men might be con­sidering an honorable retirement. As a concession, however, to his advancing years, he no longer writes every word of the magazine himself. At present he writes every other word, the intervening words being supplied by a well-known agency.

Dr. Boli presents this site as a public service; which is to say, in technical Internet terms, that he hopes you will buy a book.

 

Comments

  1. Rich says:

    On behalf of all Portuguese I want to thank our benefactor. Muito bom!

  2. Jason says:

    I used to begin letters, emails, or comments like this by saying that I don’t usually write fan mail, but after half-a-dozen such sentiments, I suppose it is time to admit to myself that the ease of fan-letter writing on the internet has made me a fan-letter writer. If I accept this identity, then I am obliged to write to you. Dr. Boli’s Celebrated Magazine is the best humor on the Web. It doesn’t pick on people, it doesn’t rely heavily on the cheap tricks of pop culture reference or self-reference, and it is never obscene. Instead, the author truly has a talent for creating highly original humor. I hope to educate my children in the Great Books Tradition. If the brilliance of this Web site’s author is an example of kind of mind that can come from such an education, that is all-the-more justification for it.

    Thank you.

  3. Amy says:

    I would just like to thank the Doctor for the letter M.

    Without this remarkable find, I would be for-ever doomed to glance up every single time The Fonz, perhaps mistakenly — and PERHAPS NOT! — said my name.

    My hat is off to you, Doctor Sir — it must be; my head is naked!

    <3!

  4. nutellaontoast says:

    I hate the letter M, but the doctor’s other efforts make up for his early mistakes.

  5. Hrodgar O'Holly says:

    I have, of course, the utmost respect for the celebrated Dr. Boli, and it is not lightly that I venture to correct a man of such formidable literary accomplishments as his celebrated Magazine, let alone that letter which allowed us to advance beyond the primitive and uncelebrated agazines. But I fear I must. All the authorities agree. The word is “undeclinable.”

    • Dr. Boli says:

      Both words are correct, but in different senses.

      “Undeclinable” means “not possible to decline” in the sense of “refuse”: “He made me an undeclinable offer.”

      “Indeclinable” means “not subject to declension” in the grammatical sense: in inflected languages like Latin, nouns and adjectives are declined (meaning given different endings according to their case in the sentence), but some nouns are regarded as indeclinable, meaning that they do not change. See Johnson’s Dictionary.

      “Undeclinable” is occasionally used in the grammatical sense as well, but most authorities (including the modern Merriam-Webster) regard “indeclinable” as the norm in that sense and “undeclinable” as a variant.

  1. […] In his experience, Dr. Boli finds that people are most surprised to learn that he invented the letter M; at first glance, they usually take him for an R or H […]

Leave a Reply to nutellaontoast Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *