Well it is no doubt that Cecil is quite an inteligent one, if not the most. But what is his IQ? And how old is Cecil. Just wondering…
1/0
?
Since he is the Perfect Master, his IQ is a Perfect Number. Three guesses as to whether it’s 6, 28 or 496.
His age, ditto.
Bad news, dude. Cecil Adams is just a name that belongs to the Chicago reader, which refers to no actual person.
The Gods only know who writes the damned things… I assume they fall from the sky somewhere, and the Reader staff collects them.
Cite:
http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=3ehlr4.2.1
(That is a US Patent and Trademark Office document)
LC
If Cecil actually is a real person, (BIG IF) his IQ isn’t necessarily so high. As I understand it, most questions are answered with a substantial amount of research and help. It’s not as though he’s answering these questions on the spot. Whereas he is certainly intelligent (the level of humor reflects this), I might not bet on him on Jeopardy! However, give him a library, a phone line, and a net connection…
Lucky Charms That was mean.
from cite…
And the abandonment date was March 29, 1989
Kinda eery that it was 14 years and 2 days ago…
Understood Jayrot, it is mostly by research.
But ot Lucki Chaarms, are All of the SDstaff members fictional?
For instance Dex, and some others that i cant think of now
Gyt FX, the Straight Dope is that while Cecil Adams may or may not be a pen name for an actual person who has been writing a column known as “The Straight Dope” ever since 1973, all the other folks are quite definitely real people, Dex and so forth. We know this is true because many of us have attended drunken naked Jello orgies known as “DopeFests” and have met these people in person.
Well, okay, I lied about the Jello, but…
Anyway, we do have DopeFests and we do meet each other IRL. CK Dexter Haven and Bibliophage and other Staff Members are “fictional” the same way you, “Gyt Fx”, are “fictional”. Those are their usernames, their “nicks”, their “handles”.
Do a Search on “dopefest” in MPSIMS and read some of the chronicles of yore, many with linked photos of the carnage.
sigh And to think that this was once a well-respected board…
Yes, gyt_fx, there is a Cecil Adams. He exists as certainly as ignorance and the will to fight it exist, and you know that they abound and give your life its greatest aggravation and most heartfelt joy.
No Cecil Adams! Thank God! he lives and his I.Q. is immeasurable. A thousand points on a Stanford-Binet, gyt_fx, nay 10 times 10,000 points would only begin to measure his intelligence in the hearts of Dopers.
Please, no offense to the board or anyone here. It’s just that I remember one of the first times that somebody asked in GQ if Cecil is real. The thread was twenty-something replies long before somebody dared to mention that he looked a little like Ed Zotti.
Many speculate that Ed Zotti was actually created from Cecil’s DNA. Not sure how they got some, but my personal theory involves a cotton swab, a bottle of Jergen’s lotion, a National Geographic magazine and a recently used tissue. Let’s speak no more of this.
Ed Zotti looks too young to have been Cecil for all these years…
Ok, I snooped the net a bit about cecil and ed Zotti. http://www.ipass.net/~whitetho/edcecil.htm Shows a side-by-side comparison of the ‘two.’ Is that Really Cecil? And who is Ed anyway? I closely looked at the picture and ‘cecil’ and ed look like the exact same person, i kid you not. Hair, glasses, slightly almost dimples, spot beneath the chin… not saying its a double chin or anything.
Could someone clarify?
You mean the site referenced in the Straight Dope FAQ?
IIRC there has been more than one Cecil. The first one may have passed away, if memory serves.
gyt_fx: read the page you linked to. It says that what you have there is two images of Ed Zotti.
I actually put that page up even before this message board existed, in order to answer a question on the alt.fan.cecil-adams USENET group. It was designed to refute the claims of various heretics, backsliders, and secret followers of Marilyn Vos Savant who suggest that Uncle Cecil is merely a puppet controlled by Little Ed. (By the way, Ed Zotti loves it when people say that it is he who is “the world’s smartest human being”.)
Cecil has had three editors over the years – Mike Lanehan, Mike Kehr, and, for the last quarter-century, Ed Zotti. Lenehan is currently a big-wig with the Chicago Reader and has even posted here a handful of times – there is a bio of him at Lenehan – note the devilish grin of the man apparently responsible for springing Uncle Cecil on an unsuspecting but gladdened world.
Ok, are there any photos of Cecil ANYWHERE?!?
And as we drift away from the general point… What is Cecil’s IQ?
From the back cover of Triumph of the Straight Dope:
What is Cecil Adams’s IQ?
“Do you want it in scientific notation? Little Ed, get out the slide rule.”–Cecil Adams
"Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.
“He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The external light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.”
Ah, hold on a sec …
Wrong file.
Carry on.
:smack: