Today’s Chicago Tribune devotes a column to the demise of Google Answers and Ask Jeeves. One reason cited is that “there are better, and cheaper, alternatives”. Among which are . . .
Unfortunately, the author doesn’t make clear the distinction between the Straight Dope, which answers only one question per week, and the SDMB, which will answer (or attempt to answer) any question submitted. Still, it’s a nice plug.
Is this some new meaning of “pseudonymous” I’m not aware of? Surely, they’re not saying that our dear Unca Cecil isn’t . . . no, I cannot finish that thought.
I think they’re just saying to don’t have to pick up the Reader to read the Straight Dope. (Since the Reader is a free publication, the Tribune would probably prefer you spend money on your papers.)
[Palpatine]Search your feelings, you know it to be true![/Palp]
There’s some evidence that the name Cecil Adams is a pseudonym. Some Dopers like to call it the Dread Pirate Cecil theory, and whether or not that’s accurate, I like the image.
Palpatine? Come on… :rolleyes:
I think they mean that Cecil also writes the Staff Reports under various pseudonyms.
Yeah, that must be it!! looks around and laughs nervously
No, there isn’t. You lie!
A couple of years ago, retired librarian Alice Mary Norton died, which was sad for the longtime patrons of her library who knew and loved her. But a much larger community died, because as “Andre Norton,” she was a prolific and always-interesting storyteller in the science fiction field. Not every novel she wrote was a groundbreaking new concept, some were merely well-written narrative on a “mixture as before” format, but one could always count on her for what Spider Robinson called “a good light read” – and she did pioneer some innovations in SF writing.
But “did Andre Norton exist?” in some metaphysical sense? Is the question even valid? It was the pen name adopted by Ms. Norton to get past the “aging female librarian” stereotype and have her books accepted as what they were.
I doubt very strongly that somewhere in greater Chicago lives a person whose mother Mrs. Adams named him Cecil at birth who receives checks from the Reader for weekly columns. But there is likely some person who may be in real life named Bruno Calabrese or Zbigniew Mickiewicz whose research and explicatory skills and sardonic wit we have come to know and love under the pen name “Cecil Adams,” which as whitetho’s researches have shown is a pseudonym which the Reader attempted to trademark.
So, “Yes, Virginia, there is a Cecil Adams” – but most likely when he goes home of an evening, his neighbor doesn’t call out, “Heya, Ceece, dig out any good Dope today?” Nor do his children have to be embarrassed when they get a question wrong on a test, at having failed their heritage as publicly known as The Children of the World’s Smartest Man.
(Then, of course, we have Ed’s intriguing remark thrown into the fray on an earlier excursion into the “Does Cecil really exist?” arena – that nobody ever stops to think and ask whether “Ed Zotti” is in fact really his name.
It is kind of a shame that Cecil doesn’t come here any more. Why is that?
Unlike me, maybe he has better things to do than hang around with the likes of us? :dubious:
One of life’s great mysteries.
Let it remain so.
A patent falsehood . . . 
I own some of the books from her library.
She sold them at auction here in Murfreesboro, & I bought them.
You mean y’all haven’t been asked to write one of Cecil’s column’s yet? I thought everyone took turns.
I’ve written a couple myself – one on cold fusion and another on compulsive lying.
Presuming whitetho’s researches are accurate, that would be a trademark falsehood! 
I saw him in the airport waiting for a plane to Bogota. He was wearing a white suit and hat.
I swear!
I assure you, he does not. The Straight Dope Science Advisory Board members are usually the ones who write the Staff Reports. Occasionally a guest will write one. Cecil does NOT spend his time writing Staff Reports, though he might glance through them before they’re put up.
I’ve written a few staff reports myself. Cecil didn’t do any of the research, but I know that one of the senior members checked my reports for style and such.