Well Batman...

I just tested this and the answer is no.
A "former pet" hattifattener will in fact run around blasting people without any consequence. The townspeople don't even fight back. This is exploity as hell!

Wow, I think Joke's idea might need to get listed as an exploit - I definitely did not know that worked.

Nope, you cannot dip a wand into bottles and after a few experiments it seems a wand also cannot become coated in acid via acid rain or holding it when I broke a bottle of sulfuric acid over myself.
If there's some way to get them coated I sure as hell can't find it. Maybe if I kill an assassin with one...

EDIT: Nope, seems you can't actually spill any liquid on wands.

Heheheh, and that's what your memory is for!

Maybe if we could see how the stethoscope code works we could use its unique little box to display some longer text.

I do kinda like the idea of a constant encyclopedia that gets updated as you play, but the idea I was going for was like an actual book with entries on monsters, so you could learn about them early and prepare.
Of course you'd have to find (or purchase) one such encyclopedia, and then there could be multiple different types of varying content.

e.g. "Common or Garden Wildlife" could be a book with entries on bunnies, large hedgehogs and carnivorous plants, whereas "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" would take forever to read and only have information on eddys.

Having the books presented in such a way is also a good reason for having the monster's lore there.
Of course there should also be some monsters which do not have entries in any such encyclopedia (i.e. uniques or people) but could have mentions or hints to them.

That kinda defeats the purpose of an encyclopedia, unless the encyclopedia entries remain constant over all games?

Maybe you could gain access to these descriptions via a monster encyclopedia?

Probably the wide open zombie level.
I can see why bones wouldn't be generated on the shop level, considering the fact that could mean free shop items or dead shopkeeper.

Also yeah I've gotten into that particular chest, there's a variety of ways once you've found it and got a way into its room:

• Polymorph the chest and it drops its contents safely.
  
• Get the key, obviously.
  
• Wand of striking will break it pretty consistently. Wand of fireballs works sometimes too, but obviously these both can damage the contents.
  
• Kicking with strong enough LSTR and/or boots.
  

Find some means of invisibility or lure Huang outside far enough that he can't see you with food (steal some bananas from the banana drop if you have to).
Next, go down the stairs and zap your wand of acid rain north where Huang would normally appear in the sumo match. Wait a bit for the acid to pool on the floor, then go upstairs and challenge Huang.