My own theory is that Cecil is just like Dr. Who, if he dies he just regenerates into a new body.
I have also heard Cecil Adams is one of the members of The Residents.
Just a rumor, though.
Yes, there is a Cecil Adams though I thought he alwasy admitted that wasn’t his real name.
Uh, Lucki, I wouldn’t talk if I were you.
Actually, he’s living like a king in Patagonia.
Yeah. But I never realize Ed could just pick him up like that.
I think I’ll move this thread to Comments on Cecil’s Columns.
bibliophage
moderator GQ
Like the Phantom, then?
(Move the thread to Comments? You mean this isn’t important for all humanity?)
Okay, with both of these USPTO searches, all I get is “This search session has expired. Please start a search session again by clicking on the TRADEMARK icon, if you wish to continue.” Could somebody tell me what, exactly, I should search for to find the pages originally referenced?
Well, uh, Lucky Charms, happens to be a trademark registered to General Mills. (The alternate spelling didn’t fool me.) So Lucki must not be a real person!
OK, not very funny. Never mind.
(Go to http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/gate.exe?f=tess&state=n9j3jd.1.1 if you want to search for a trademark.)
You see, no one would submit questions to the Dread Columnist Wesley.
Just page back as instructed and do a trademark search on “Cecil Adams”.
However, the fact that the Chicago Reader’s lawyers registered the pen name and allowed for the possibility of replacement Cecils does not, in fact, mean that there is not a One True Cecil. We simply don’t know. Ever since the quarrel between Pulitzer and Hearst over The Yellow Kid, over a century ago, publishers have always done this sort of thing to shroud their fundaments.
The fact that the TM was abandoned rather indicates, in fact, that there is a One True Cecil, whom the Reader no longer regards as fungible.
<< For instance Dex, and some others that i cant think of now >>
I don’t think I’m fictional, and neither do my wife or my kids or my dog. OK, OK, I admit it, I hired a nerd to play me at Chicago Dopefest. Cost a pretty penny.
Cecil doesn’t allow photos, he has this notion that if his photos (or real name) were known, he wouldn’t be able to go to the grocery story without being mobbed by fans. OK, so he’s a genius, he’s allowed his delusions of grandeur. I’m sure not going to tell him different.
I remember doing a test to determine Cecil’s IQ, and I found it to be around 125-130 on the Terman scale, above-average, but notat genius level. What he does deserve credit for (in fact, the alleged photo of him relates to this) is that he’s one of the most tireless researchers on the face of the planet.
Also, with Cec’s age, due to his young children and some of his tastes, I’d put him in his early 50’s.
Governor, could you give us a little more detail on how that test was conducted? Is it based on analysis of his writing? Because I had understood that all such IQ tests were unreliable, showing a poor correlation at best with the results from standardized IQ tests.
I didn’t bother with his writing, which could be difficult, as his style seems to change over the years (read the first column). To be perfectly honest, in fact, my method might be even less reliable. I started off assuming that he’s at average IQ level, and then, instead of using his writing, used the subjects on which he writes on, with actual writing only used if it seems to collaborate any points. The range of subject matter dealt with suggests some above-average intelligence, but the fact that so much of it needs to have assistents or him openly addmitting to source material suggests that it isn’t at genius level.
I’ll admit first off that this isn’t really a good method, but until he comes out and takes proper tests, I can’t do any better than this.
I still stand on my age for Cec, though.
In fact, when I tried the writing analysis test that Chronos mentioned, I got a score of average, as Cec does not use a very complicated vocabulary, and being a smartalec doesn’t guarantee any particular brain power.
That presupposes, then, that knowing when to ask for help makes a person less intelligent? And really, most of Cecil’s questions are not the sort of thing that’s answered by raw processing power, but by knowledge. Even a genius has to accquire his knowledge somewhere, and what difference if it’s before or after the question was asked?
Personally, it seems to me that a reasonable definition of “smartness” would be a person’s ability to make use of available resources to answer questions. By that standard, yes, Cecil is very smart indeed.
Ooh, another band name: the Fungible Cecils!