I was speaking with a friend about The Straight Dope column, and she mentioned that Cecil Adams probably wasn’t a real person, but a group of writers. Is this true?
What’s the straight dope on… well, The Straight Dope?
Strangely enough I was about to start a GD thread about this very topic.
I think the consensus seems to be that Ed Zotti “is” Cecil, meaning that he writes the columns. It would appear that the name Cecil Adams is owned by the Reader, not by Ed, and that in the early years the column was actually written by someone else.
Interestingly, I think there was a prominent novelist named Hal Croven (in the first part of this century) who preferred to remain anonymous, writing under the pseudonym B. Travern and pretending that he, Croven, was merely the agent of the real writer.
An interview with Cecil’s current editor, Ed Zotti, is included in Triumph of the Straight Dope, Cecil’s latest opus, available at bookstores everywhere. Included is the following:
Q. How do you respond to people who allege you are, in fact, Cecil Adams?
A. With ill-concealed delight. It is difficult to object too strenuously to being mistaken for the world’s most intelligent human being. If Cecil gets a little miffed, well, he has no one to blame but himself. Of course, I am contractually bound to tell the truth, but one meets these eager young reporters who do so want to believe they have uncovered one’s dirty little secret, and who am I to disappoint them? I remember one fellow . . . yes, he believed I was Cecil, all right. Two more beers and I’d have had him believing I was Amelia Earhart.
It’s been discussed ad infinitum here already. But you can check the phone book, there are about 6 people with that name in that area.
Cecil Adams is as real as you or I. As he is a bit of an acerbic, antisocial geek he prefers to use a pseudonym.
And if you check some of the things Little Ed has written, you can see that his style is radically different from Cecil’s. (Also, and I hate to say it, Ed isn’t the sharpest card in the deck, if you know what I mean. Damn fine editor, and he needs to be to turn some of Cecil’s work into something publishable, but no writer himself.)
Ed Zotti also wonders how people can question the name “Cecil Adams” without questioning “Ed Zotti”. 
Kansas Man, your little friend is wrong. She has been affected by the credulism of a credulous age. She does not accept except what she sees on Oprah. She thinks that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by her little mind. All minds, Kansas Man, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.
Yes, Kansas Man, there is a Cecil Adams.
He exists as certainly as investigation and research and analysis 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 Cecil Adams! It would be as dreary as if there were no Kansas Man. There would be no ornery skepticism then, no doubting, no analysis to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The external light with which childhood’s demands for truth fill the world would be extinguished.
Not believe in Cecil Adams! You might as well not believe in the OED, the Encyclopædia Britannica or Google. You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the Chicago Reader offices on Monday morning to catch Cecil Adams, but even if you did not see Cecil Adams enter the building, what would that prove? Nobody sees Cecil Adams, but that is no sign that there is no Cecil Adams. The most real things in the world are those that have not been debunked by Cecil or Jan Harold Brunvand. Did you ever see Zhou Enlai? Of course not, he used to live in China and he’s dead now, but that does not mean he was not real. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the masters there are unseen and unseeable in the world.
You may tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the agoraphobic world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived could tear apart. Only cash, therapy, cash, perhaps threats, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Kansas Man, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.
No Cecil Adams? Thank God he lives and lives forever. A thousand years from now, Kansas Man, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of students of knowledge.
And I suppose we’re supposed to believe that Kansas Man is a real person, eh?
Rather amazing to see this kind of “evidence” presented in a forum supposedly devoted to critical thinking.
Cecil may indeed be real, but the above certainly in no way “proves” nor even supports the claim.
Let’s see, you’re the self-proclaimed smartest man in the world, you’re really Ed Zotti, hiding behind a pseudonym. Would it occur to you – and be within your abilities – to use a “radically different” writing style in your Ed persona than in your Cecil persona? And even to “dumb it down” when appearing as Ed?
Twisty’s Theorem:
I have discovered a truly remarkable proof for this claim, but unfortunately there is not enough bandwith in the server to contain it.
Would you believe I met Cecil when I was in Chicago?
Why hasn’t anyone made tomndebb a moderator yet?
beautiful, man. you brought a tear to my eye.
I can assure you that Cecil is one individual, and NOT a committee.
Staff may help from time to time with bits of research and confirmation. There was the time he asked us to let mosquitoes bite us, to see if they would explode, frinstance. Or Jane, running with a duck through the halls to get it to quack so they could verify the echo. Or… Well, I digress.
But Staff don’t do the writing. Reports written by Staff are published as Staff Reports (formerly “Mailbag”), and have only been going on for about five years. Cecil writes the columns, Ed edits them. Period. Sorry to be so prosaic.
Hmm, it would appear that some posters do actually believe that Ed Zotti is not Cecil, though some seem to be merely playing along with the joke. I actually think the fact that Ed is Cecil is sort of an open secret, a sort of insider joke, and is not being seriously denied. See for example the SD FAQs Etc.and click on the Cecil Adams vs. Ed Zotti link.
Also see this interview with Ed in the Denver Post which is completely premised on the idea that he is indeed “Cecil Adams”.
As regards to alleged discrepancies in the styles of Cecil vs. Ed, I’m unsure what of Ed’s writing is being used for the comparison. But I would note that most of his writing to this board concerns administrative functions, which are of necessity not the same irreverent style as his columns. In the aforementioned Denver Post article it says that Zotti “had penned humor pieces for the weekly” prior to “editing” the SD. They also refer to a quote from “Zotti, whose irreverent humor spikes his conversations as well as his columns”.
(I’m not sure what handy meant by pointing out that there are people named Cecil Adams.)
I did a search for Ed in Cecil’s Recent Columns. In almost every occasion, “Little Ed” is used purely as a prop for jokes, with the exception of one time when he was used as an intermediary to interact with the public. IOW, no actual research or writing is cited in his name.
Beyond this, the notion that a Zotti would spend so many years as the full time editor of a single column, especially in the early years when it had not achieved the popularity that it has today, is extremely unlikely on its face IMO.
Bottom line is that although we cannot be absolutely certain of the exact nature of the Cecil Adams arrangement, the working assumption has to be that Ed Zotti is indeed the author of the columns that are published under this name.
Uhh…he already is, at 3F. Does he really need to be one at another Board?
And I’ve got some bad news for all of you. You’re all merely figments of my imagination. When I die, all of you, including your dear Cecil, will cease to exist. So it’s irrelevant whether Cecil is a single entity or a plurality.
Cecil has mentioned talking to enough groups, and named enough aquaintences that it should be possible to settle the Ed/Cecil debate. Haven’t done a complete search, but off the top of my head I can think of a reference to speaking in person to a Mensa meeting, to a college buddy who writes for the Washington Post AND is really into TM, to a recent column that named a Chicago police officer who was a classmate. He also has refered to personal conversations with Jerle (I forget the last name) and Jan Brunwald (although I don’t recall whether he made reference to meeting these guys in person). If someone wants to do the detective work, there’s a few calls to start with! He’s also referred to enough radio appearances that someone who knows Ed should be able to confirm/deny whether the voices were the same.
He’s as real as I’ve ever made one.
Here’s something I noticed a couple of weeks ago. I wasn’t going to mention it, but since the topic’s popped up again:
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See the article Will tapping a pop can keep the carbonation from exploding on opening? Cecil mentions Little Ed asking on Usenet.
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Here’s the thread alluded to: Does tapping Coke can keep fizz from exploding?
If you go to the second page of the thread, in message 16, Ed writes:
Now, in the original article, Cecil says
Now, Ed doesn’t specifically say “I got off the phone with Walker”. But the implication is there. Was the I purposely omitted from the Usenet posting, because he actually meant “we”? Or did he actually mean “I”?
Not proof, but interesting, nonetheless…
Lies.
Note: It is against the board rules to state misleading or known non-factual information. Therefore, I’m quoting the government of the USA.
Ask the federal government themselves, they say & they say this clearly, “CECIL ADAMS DOES NOT IDENTIFY ANY PARTICULAR INDIVIDUAL BUT WAS DEVISED AS A FANCIFUL NAME”
Word Mark
CECIL ADAMS
Goods and Services
(ABANDONED) IC 016. US 038. G & S: NEWSPAPER COLUMN. FIRST USE: 19730202.
FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 19730202
Mark Drawing Code
(1) TYPED DRAWING
Serial Number
73631921
Filing Date
November 24, 1986
Owner
(APPLICANT) CHICAGO READER, INCORPORATED CORPORATION ILLINOIS P.O.
BOX 11101, FORT DEARBORN STATION CHICAGO ILLINOIS 60611
Attorney of Record
RICHARD H. COMPERE
Type of Mark
TRADEMARK
Register
PRINCIPAL-2(F)
Other Data
CECIL ADAMS DOES NOT IDENTIFY ANY PARTICULAR INDIVIDUAL BUT WAS
DEVISED AS A FANCIFUL NAME
Live/Dead Indicator
DEAD
Abandonment Date
March 29, 1989
What says you tomndebb?
I get enough hate mail and death threats on a site with fewer than 900 registrations, I am not nearly masochistic enough to subject myself to 13,000 hostile opinions. The mods here have my respect, not my envy.