# POLL: Dopers are a curious lot -- and have been since childhood **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 6, 2022, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-dopers-are-a-curious-lot-and-have-been-since-childhood/957324 "2022-01-06T14:42:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2022, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-dopers-are-a-curious-lot-and-have-been-since-childhood/957324/81 "2022-01-07T03:28:39Z")
> [@Tibby](#): > > …and, of course, looked at all the naked National Geo pics. [blush] Which, during the centenary, the current editors admitted was why they were there in the first place. _National Geographic_ magazine – the PornHub of its day. ---
**Author:** ![aurora\_maire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aurora_maire/32/328_2.png) [@aurora\_maire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aurora_maire)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2022, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-dopers-are-a-curious-lot-and-have-been-since-childhood/957324/82 "2022-01-07T05:11:48Z")
> [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](#): > > I’d love to reread some of those Childcraft volumes. WB too, but I think I’d be blown away most by restored memories and emotions associated with the Childcraft series. 😁 I actually looked them up on ebay after I posted. This is the set I believe I had (it’s missing two, though). Those orange covers take me right back. [https://www.ebay.com/itm/125009668037?chn=ps&norover=1&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-117182-37290-0&mkcid=2&itemid=125009668037&targetid=1263433204934&device=c&mktype=&googleloc=9013526&poi=&campaignid=14859008593&mkgroupid=130497710760&rlsatarget=pla-1263433204934&abcId=9300678&merchantid=114990525&gclid=Cj0KCQiAw9qOBhC-ARIsAG-rdn7tJ\_sYqCV6JKJMwjipVodUE9PnSq6ofQ0p6\_0Dcn8wvteIhBN5ol8aAth8EALw\_wcB](https://www.ebay.com/itm/125009668037?chn=ps&norover=1&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-117182-37290-0&mkcid=2&itemid=125009668037&targetid=1263433204934&device=c&mktype=&googleloc=9013526&poi=&campaignid=14859008593&mkgroupid=130497710760&rlsatarget=pla-1263433204934&abcId=9300678&merchantid=114990525&gclid=Cj0KCQiAw9qOBhC-ARIsAG-rdn7tJ_sYqCV6JKJMwjipVodUE9PnSq6ofQ0p6_0Dcn8wvteIhBN5ol8aAth8EALw_wcB) ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2022, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-dopers-are-a-curious-lot-and-have-been-since-childhood/957324/83 "2022-01-07T05:18:25Z")
> [@needscoffee](#): > > I was especially fascinated by the clear overlays of the human body in the World Book encyclopedia. Skeleton, organs, circulatory system etc. By virtue of inheriting it, I still have one of those which is at least 15 years older than me. I too found those overlays fascinating. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2022, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-dopers-are-a-curious-lot-and-have-been-since-childhood/957324/84 "2022-01-07T05:42:18Z")
This has always bugged me. Anybody know why Evel Knievel could only jump over volumes A through W? And who puts a set of encyclopedias on the shelf left to right? [![](https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/mcs/media/images/83166000/jpg/_83166077_evilnewad_cut.jpg) ](https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/mcs/media/images/83166000/jpg/_83166077_evilnewad_cut.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2022, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-dopers-are-a-curious-lot-and-have-been-since-childhood/957324/85 "2022-01-07T05:47:13Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > Anybody know why Evel Knievel could only jump over volumes A through W? A He didn’t have two more weeks to wait around for the grocery store to get volumes Y and Z. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2022, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-dopers-are-a-curious-lot-and-have-been-since-childhood/957324/86 "2022-01-07T05:48:38Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > My second-favorite was The Mind, especially the parts about mental illness. Something about that grotesquely fascinated me, including the artwork by famous schizophrenics. It had pictures of the [Inferno panel from Bosch’s](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Garden_of_Earthly_Delights#Right_panel) _Garden of Earthly Delights_ , and [_The Maze_ by William Kurelek](https://artschaft.com/2018/09/09/william-kurelek-the-maze-1953/), and a picture of a very spikey-looking cat. Oh, and of course [_The Scream_ by Edvard Munch](https://www.edvardmunch.org/the-scream.jsp). Yes, I remember _The Mind_ as well, and all those pictures! I even wanted to be a psychologist for a while after I read it. The spikey cat pictures were by [Louis Wain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Wain). A new Amazon Prime movie, _The Electrical Life of Louis Wain_ was released just a couple of months ago. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2022, 6:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-dopers-are-a-curious-lot-and-have-been-since-childhood/957324/87 "2022-01-07T06:54:52Z")
I also had a huge stack of the UK weekly magazine _World of Wonder_, published from 1970-1975. They had interesting articles about science, history, geography, literature, music, etc – a huge variety of subjects, and good articles and illustrations for children. I leaned a lot from them. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2022, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-dopers-are-a-curious-lot-and-have-been-since-childhood/957324/88 "2022-01-07T06:57:58Z")
As a child, we lived too far from the nearest library for me to go there, at least until I got my first decent bike (and some autonomy) in 7th grade. But mom bought a Compton’s Junior Picture Encyclopedia for us around 2nd grade, and it was a window to the world. I learned to read (mom was a teacher) around age 3-4, so by 2nd grade, I could read anything I could find. The Compton’s was a single-shelf set of books, half of what the Britannica was, but we couldn’t afford the Britannica. I still have the Compton’s in the basement. The local library won’t accept encyclopedias for their annual book sale, as they can’t sell them for love or money. But I enjoy pulling it out occasionally and looking up topics where knowledge has moved forward considerably, like astronomy. We used to have a 2-volume encyclopedia ca. 1910 vintage. I remember it didn’t have an entry for the planet Pluto, as it hadn’t been discovered (or downgraded) yet. Think about the limited knowledge of dinosaurs, plate tectonics, black holes, etc. 100 or even 50 years ago. ---
**Author:** ![FairyChatMom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fairychatmom/32/21906_2.png) [@FairyChatMom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FairyChatMom)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2022, 11:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-dopers-are-a-curious-lot-and-have-been-since-childhood/957324/89 "2022-01-07T11:23:25Z")
My parents bought an Encyclopedia Brittanica for the family, and with 5 kids doing reports for school, it was used a lot. But somewhere along the line, they also got an old set of encyclopedias (I don’t know whose) that were kept in the basement bathroom, of all places. Not only did it help pass the time, but it was interesting to discover what _wasn’t_ in the old volumes. I’ve been semi-tempted to buy old sets I see advertised, but I’ve resisted so far. Still, it would be fun. Oh, and my mom was on Jeopardy back in the Art Fleming days when one of the consolation prizes was a set of encyclopedias - since we already had top-of-the-line, she donated her winnings to our school library. I’d love to see them now - 50 years later. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2022, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-dopers-are-a-curious-lot-and-have-been-since-childhood/957324/90 "2022-01-07T12:23:59Z")
> [@Tired\_and\_Cranky](#): > > We had the Funk and Wagnell’s set as a kid. So you could look things up in your Funk & Wagnall’s? 😃 We had the World Book set - I think my parents still have them, despite the books being from 1973. > [@Grrr](#): > > My favorite part of the encyclopedia was the anatomy. They had these cool cellophane overlays of the human body. First the skeleton, flip a page over then the arteries, flip another page over then the muscles, etc… > > I think it was World Book. That rings a bell. And was very cool indeed. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2022, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-dopers-are-a-curious-lot-and-have-been-since-childhood/957324/91 "2022-01-07T13:43:37Z")
A friend of mine had a geography book from around the 1890’s. It was interesting to peruse through. The writers certainly were _not_ very politically correct. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2022, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-dopers-are-a-curious-lot-and-have-been-since-childhood/957324/92 "2022-01-07T14:28:39Z")
A friend bought an old dictionary, perhaps from that time frame. It defined “star” as a dot of light in the sky. It also had a multi-page spread in the back of the “races of man”, with illustrations of about 40 races. (All adult males, of course.) For example, the Bantu were a race, and the Aryans were a race. Why no, the brief descriptions of those races were NOT politically correct. Although they did tend to focus on physical characteristics. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2022, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-dopers-are-a-curious-lot-and-have-been-since-childhood/957324/93 "2022-01-07T14:45:42Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > It defined “star” as a dot of light in the sky. Hmmm…literal, perhaps, but hardly exhaustive. 🤔 ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2022, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-dopers-are-a-curious-lot-and-have-been-since-childhood/957324/94 "2022-01-07T15:02:56Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > A friend of mine had a geography book from around the 1890’s. It was interesting to peruse through. **The writers certainly were _not_ very politically correct.** That was true in the 1958 World Book as well. I don’t recall any overt hate. It was just that many articles about individual countries showed photographs that distilled the citizens therein to stereotypes – usually rural Argentinians or Bulgarians or whatever that maintained older styles of dress, older customs, etc. Nothing wrong with being rural and/or traditional, or course … the point is that there seemed to be an (inadvertent?) effort to make “other places” seem as wildly different as possible from the U.S. It didn’t seem like other parts of the world had cities and towns like America’s, or necessarily had kids who grew up with experiences similar to mine. I also remember an article about Race that showed stereotypical pictures of people from different parts of the world. IIRC, they grouped aboriginal Australians with sub-Saharan Africans. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2022, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-dopers-are-a-curious-lot-and-have-been-since-childhood/957324/95 "2022-01-07T15:18:48Z")
My parents had a 1947 (I think) set of Encyclopedia Britannica and a 20 volume set of The Book of Knowledge, which was geared to children. I used to read the latter all the time when young and the former as I grew older. My sister taught me how to read at a very young age, and I was a regular at the local library. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2022, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-dopers-are-a-curious-lot-and-have-been-since-childhood/957324/96 "2022-01-07T15:20:34Z")
My parents chose food and shelter over encyclopedias. I did enjoy flipping through them at the library. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2022, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-dopers-are-a-curious-lot-and-have-been-since-childhood/957324/97 "2022-01-07T15:22:17Z")
World Book was published in Chicago. They used Malvina Hoffman’s sculptures at the nearby Field Museum for the various races, now reconsidered: sub-Saharan African = Australian = Papuan = generic “negriods.” ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2022, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-dopers-are-a-curious-lot-and-have-been-since-childhood/957324/98 "2022-01-07T16:23:28Z")
See, in that sense the even older dictionary was more accurate, with its ~40 races. They separated the Khoisan (they used a different word, but the word they used is a slur) from the Bantu. They certainly didn’t lump the Australians in with either of those groups. Although they probably organized the pictures approximately by skin tone. ---
**Author:** ![Limmin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f04885/32.png) [@Limmin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Limmin)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2022, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-dopers-are-a-curious-lot-and-have-been-since-childhood/957324/99 "2022-01-07T16:26:29Z")
Sure, I perused our Encyclopedias and Dictionary (a huge book on a stand) from time to time, but even back in the 1980’s, they felt _old_, man. I have a much stronger memory of browsing Atlases. And I’m not the only one; my two best friends from Middle School and High School also did this. For us, it was an “entry point” into understanding what shaped the personalities and behaviors of nations, explained the ease (or difficulty) of waging war on others, explained how the world was explored, etc. Helped build an intuition of what it was like to be _from_ a different place; i.e. who your neighbors are, how far away, what direction, where is the sea, etc. This knowledge served me a lot during my early adult world travels. Made me much less of a newbie when meeting people from outside the USA (my home country). ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2022, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-dopers-are-a-curious-lot-and-have-been-since-childhood/957324/100 "2022-01-07T16:34:28Z")
The volume-at-a-time-from-the-grocery-store reference book that I remember from childhood is one I haven’t seen mentioned yet in this thread: the _Charlie Brown Dictionary_. I remember we had at least a [volume](https://www.amazon.com/Charlie-Brown-Dictionary-Charles-Schulz/dp/B0044AS62Q) or two, then we got the whole thing in a [single volume](https://www.amazon.com/Charlie-Brown-Dictionary-Charles-Schulz/dp/0394830415). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-dopers-are-a-curious-lot-and-have-been-since-childhood/957324.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-dopers-are-a-curious-lot-and-have-been-since-childhood/957324.md?page=6)