Favorites from the column

[Zyada]

What are your favorite questions from the columns? Favorite Cecilisms?

[Mahaloth]

Schrodenger’s Cat: An Epic Poem

Far and away my favorite question and answer.

[Zyada]

No one else?

[Shoeless]

A couple of my favorites from the Straight Dope books:

I don’t even remember the question, but Cecil’s response to one person was “If ignorance were corn flakes, you’d be General Mills.”

There was also one person who wrote in asking what he would need to do to become a eunuch. “Imagine, me a eunuch!” He said. Cecil’s response: “I’m having trouble imagining you at all, much less as a eunuch.”

[Kent_Clark]

@Shoeless

I don’t even remember the question, but Cecil’s response to one person was “If ignorance were corn flakes, you’d be General Mills.”

That was the first one I thought of, as well.

The second one I thought of was the dustup over the caloric content of semenand Cecil’s defense of both the question and his methodology:

@The Master

You accuse me, it seems, of (1) making up the question in order to be, shall we say, sensationalist, and (2) failing to answer the question correctly. In other words, I made up a question I could not answer–how foolish of me! And then, having contrived the question, I compounded my error by tipping off eagle-eyed observers such as yourself to the fact by including the “name withheld” business. How easy it would have been for me to invent a pair of initials and an address to go along with my invented question. I don’t know what could have come over me.

[Ponch8]

I liked the one in the original Straight Dope book about why double albums (in the days of phonographs) had parts 1 and 4 on one record, and parts 2 and 3 on the other. Cecil says that even a braindead orangutan could figure it out, and then goes on to explain the magic of the automatic record changing device on the record player. He concludes the column by saying, “Christ, they’ll have to start putting instructions on the toilet paper if this keeps up.”

[Locrian]

Oh, TOO many. I began reading the article when I was a young teen, I think in the City Paper. I bought all the books and read them over and over.

Personal favs:
Why Is Shit Brown? (always good at a party.)
Is Honey Bee Vomit?
Who invented the Smiley Face (if you have a lot of time)
Ouija Boards
What’s Up With 666 (Mark of the beast)
Hiccups
How Do They Put Beer In A Can

Enjoy!

[Rilchiam]

Ear hair and nose hair.

*(11) Some great mind is going to have to do a lot of this work over if we’re going to come to any firm conclusions about ear and nose hair.

(12) But it’s not going to be me. *