# Cecil Adams **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [October 25, 2005, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cecil-adams/327766 "2005-10-25T03:19:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Marlitharn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/779978/32.png) [@Marlitharn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marlitharn)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2005, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cecil-adams/327766/21 "2005-10-25T14:03:38Z")
There’s a picture of him right on the official [T-shirt](https://securesite.chireader.com/cgi-bin/dopestore/buystuff.bat#tshirt)! _sigh_ Slug’s such a _gifted_ portrait artist… ---
**Author:** ![Cartooniverse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cartooniverse/32/3084_2.png) [@Cartooniverse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartooniverse)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2005, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cecil-adams/327766/22 "2005-10-25T14:04:42Z")
> [@Larry Borgia](#): > > Cecil Adams is an office as well as a man, a bit like being the Pope or the Green Lantern. I have to say it. I’m sorry. But I feel strongly about it, dammit. **Sig Line !!!**. Not for nothing, but it’s high time that both the Green Lantern and the Pope gave a respectful nod to the third and equal leg. Yanno? For one thing, the Pope is all-knowing, the Green Lantern is all-glowing. Only Cecil Adams is both. Things come in threes, like Manny, Moe and Jack, Huey Dewey and Louie, Kirk, Spock and McCoy, and the more infamous Trinity. The only thing of substance that came in fours was Rock, Paper, Scissors and Stone. Nobody’s tried to show the same reverence to them. Yet. 😃 Cartooniverse ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2005, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cecil-adams/327766/23 "2005-10-25T14:14:16Z")
> [@Cartooniverse](#): > > Things come in threes Like Thing 1, Thing 2, and…Hi, Opal? ---
**Author:** ![Marlitharn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/779978/32.png) [@Marlitharn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marlitharn)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2005, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cecil-adams/327766/24 "2005-10-25T14:54:50Z")
You know, that lingerie google ad keeps popping up in the oddest places. The Gamera thread, the kitties smacking the op over the head thread, now this one…and now I’m picturing Cecil in a pink lace teddy with fishnet stockings… [sub]oh dear og make it stop…[/sub] ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2005, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cecil-adams/327766/25 "2005-10-25T15:25:08Z")
Thanks, **Cartooniverse**! 🙂 You’re welcome to it if you want it. ---
**Author:** ![Improv\_Geek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b3f665/32.png) [@Improv\_Geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Improv_Geek)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2005, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cecil-adams/327766/26 "2005-10-25T15:44:38Z")
Alright, my serious answer - it’s a marketing line. Trying to factually claim yourself the smartest person in the world would bring all sorts of problems, defining intelligence for example - how can one be judged as the smartest person in the world? Writing skills? Math? Chess? Arts? However, Cecil is a real guy. He runs a doughnut shop in Des Moines with Elvis. Honest. ---
**Author:** ![alterego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/6bbea6/32.png) [@alterego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alterego)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2005, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cecil-adams/327766/27 "2005-10-25T15:46:15Z")
> [@Lynn Bodoni](#): > > In short, don’t answer a question unless you know the answer. Given the topic at hand, do you know the answer? If so i’d assume there were some evidence waiting to be shared… Otherwise, you couldn’t possibly know the answer any better than anyone else 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2005, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cecil-adams/327766/28 "2005-10-25T15:55:13Z")
> [@roger thornhill](#): > > Cecil’s a big boy. I’m sure he’ll be along in a while to answer for himself. Even if he doesn’t do vanity searches, one of his acolytes will have tipped him off by now. Something about the thought of **Cecil Adams** doing a vanity search, like a run-of-the-mill mortal Doper, seems incongruous and even a little depressing. He seems like he should be above that kind of thing. Even acolytes would be a little prosaic. Picture the exchange: “Master, they’re discussing you in a thread in MPSIMS.” “Be gone, varlet! It’s _my message board_! _Every_ discussion is about me, even if it purports to be about foolery like the Marianas Trench or the Simpsons. Be gone, and trouble me no more!” ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2005, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cecil-adams/327766/29 "2005-10-25T16:03:13Z")
Yeah, usually Ed deals with stuff like this, when it’s needed to be dealt with at all. ---
**Author:** ![Hal\_Briston](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a9a28c/32.png) [@Hal\_Briston](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hal_Briston)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2005, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cecil-adams/327766/30 "2005-10-25T16:13:24Z")
Hey, what’s this load of crap in the ads?? > [@](#): > > Who Is Uncle Big Bucks? > It’s Benito Palmarini also known by experts as worlds smartest man > [www.freewebs.com/worldsgreatestman](http://www.freewebs.com/worldsgreatestman) Lies! Lies! ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2005, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cecil-adams/327766/31 "2005-10-25T16:19:51Z")
Mr. Adams is no less than one of the best researchers we have. And he was that before the Internet came along, as well. Would you like to research the caloric content of semen? ---
**Author:** ![eleanorigby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@eleanorigby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eleanorigby)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2005, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cecil-adams/327766/32 "2005-10-25T16:28:27Z")
I have it on good authority that Cecil Adams is a woman. ---
**Author:** ![Spiff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spiff/32/9852_2.png) [@Spiff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiff)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2005, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cecil-adams/327766/33 "2005-10-25T18:25:14Z")
Cecil can’t be the most intelligent person in the world, because that chick who writes for Parade magazine is. ---
**Author:** ![Plynck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Plynck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Plynck)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2005, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cecil-adams/327766/34 "2005-10-25T18:49:01Z")
> [@Larry Borgia](#): > > You’re free to disbelieve, of course, as long as you don’t mind roating in the fires of hell in the life to come. If we do believe, do we instead get the [72 virgins](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/011214.html)? Because that would really be a good return on my membership fee. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2005, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cecil-adams/327766/35 "2005-10-25T19:33:27Z")
> [@Spiff](#): > > Cecil can’t be the most intelligent person in the world, because that chick who writes for Parade magazine is. Marilyn has neither [the record](http://www.wiskit.com/marilyn.html) nor the wit to claim that title, her last name notwithstanding. And her weaseling ability[sup]1[/sup] is subpar to say the least, whereas Cecil is the pinnacle of a [basilisk](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilisk)-killing member of genus _Mustelidae_. Really! I mean just look at their respective venues; Cecil is a celebrated contributor to the Chicago Reader; Marilyn is a mere columnist in the Sunday color supplement alongside celebrity suck-up James Brady and that Jello-mold festisist Shiela Lukins. Need we say more? And her puzzles suck. I’ve gotten more challenge from the back side of a Pizza Hut placemat. Stranger [sup]1[/sup] 'Weaseling out of things is important for kids to learn. It’s what separates us from the animals. Except the weasel." – Homer Simpson ---
**Author:** ![Kythereia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e8c25b/32.png) [@Kythereia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kythereia)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2005, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cecil-adams/327766/36 "2005-10-25T19:34:29Z")
Cecil exists because he told me so. So there. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_Carnage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/max_carnage/32/12775_2.png) [@Max\_Carnage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Carnage)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2005, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cecil-adams/327766/37 "2005-10-25T20:01:51Z")
Yes, Virginia, there is a Cecil Adams. He exists in the hearts of the hippest, smartest people on the planet (and in the hearts of a few dipsticks.) ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2005, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cecil-adams/327766/38 "2005-10-25T22:42:46Z")
As serious an answer as is possible: Cecil Adams is the pseudonym of a person. Ed Zotti has been for 25 years his editor. Ed is not him, though he has appeared _in loco Cecilis_ on a few occasions. His columns are written by him, with the able help of Ed and, sometimes, the SDSAB, in research and rewrite. To a certain extent, Ed and the Administrators build up the mystery for the sheer fun of it. Who is this man? If he wanted us to know, he would have revealed his secret identity already. And, of course, it’s possible that what we are faced with is the Dread Pirate Cecil. ---
**Author:** ![LiveOnAPlane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3d9bf3/32.png) [@LiveOnAPlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LiveOnAPlane)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2005, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cecil-adams/327766/39 "2005-10-25T22:48:37Z")
I really resisted going kinda off-topic here, but I can no longer resist, due to the misinformation and completely wrong reporting of Elvis’ (is that the correct use of the apostrophe? well, anyway,[sic] if it’s not) supposed death. I know for a fact that Elvis is not dead He is stuck in Concourse C of the Atlanta airport waiting for his ASA connection to Memphis; I’ve met him there many times myself. So there! ---
**Author:** ![Anastasaeon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/73ab20/32.png) [@Anastasaeon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anastasaeon)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2005, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cecil-adams/327766/40 "2005-10-25T22:53:02Z")
He is real. And he looks like a turkey. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cecil-adams/327766.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cecil-adams/327766.md?page=3)