Don't argue English with Tolkien

Apparently Tolkien was so in love with archaic spellings that he spelled "climbed" as "clomb." This was regularly edited out of his published works, so most people don't know about it, but he did manage to keep less obvious variations such as "dwarves." One time a woman informed Tolkien that his spelling was wrong, as the OED said "dwarfs."

"Madam," said Tolkien, "I wrote the Oxford English Dictionary."

An anecdote from Darwin's sister, who is the secretary of the Oxford C.S. Lewis Society. (And you thought your extra-curricular activities were something to write home about...)