# 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:** 7
**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 8, 2022, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-dopers-are-a-curious-lot-and-have-been-since-childhood/957324/121 "2022-01-08T19:18:18Z")
> [@Si\_Amigo](#): > > How far were the Germans in Russia? Damn, my nerdiness is showing! I don’t remember, but I do remember a chunk of Libya was Axis pink while Egypt was Allied orange. ---
**Author:** ![Tabco](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tabco/32/7644_2.png) [@Tabco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tabco)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2022, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-dopers-are-a-curious-lot-and-have-been-since-childhood/957324/122 "2022-01-08T19:34:06Z")
Last night I was thinking about this topic and I had completely forgotten I had a set of _Growing Up with Science_ books when I was in 6th grade or so. It was a 26-volume set (the 26th volume was a glossary). You could buy them once per month but my parents got the whole things at once after 5-6 months of me griping about how long it’d take to complete the set. At some point they must’ve assumed I finished reading them 'cause they were given away without my knowledge. I wasn’t very pleased. It may be why I forgot about them. [![](https://i.imgur.com/Ni8W4JJ.jpg) ](https://i.imgur.com/Ni8W4JJ.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2022, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-dopers-are-a-curious-lot-and-have-been-since-childhood/957324/123 "2022-01-08T23:03:51Z")
When I was little, my parents got the Salvat Encyclopedia. > **[Enciclopedia Salvat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enciclopedia_Salvat)** > > Pages for logged out editors learn more > > Enciclopedia Salvat, long title Diccionario Enciclopédico Salvat Universal is a Spanish-language encyclopedia compiled and published by Editorial Salvat (Salvat Editores), a well-known house in development and publication of dictionaries and reference works on various levels. > The 20-volume 16,000 page alphabetically arranged and illustrated encyclopedia focuses on the core areas of knowledge: Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Ecology, Mathematics, Phi... Had to wait a month for an installment, not cheap, but my parents noticed what I wanted early on. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2022, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-dopers-are-a-curious-lot-and-have-been-since-childhood/957324/124 "2022-01-08T23:20:31Z")
> [@Tabco](#): > > I had a set of _Growing Up with Science_ books Huh. The binding design on those is very similar to the _How it Works: The New Illustrated Science and Invention Encyclopedia_ books I had (still have): [![](https://i.imgur.com/1plbHp5.png) ](https://i.imgur.com/1plbHp5.png) It looks like they indeed had the same publisher, H.S. Stuttman, and at least some of the same authors. ---
**Author:** ![Tabco](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tabco/32/7644_2.png) [@Tabco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tabco)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2022, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-dopers-are-a-curious-lot-and-have-been-since-childhood/957324/125 "2022-01-08T23:30:29Z")
Yeah it’s clear they have the same lineage. The subtitle on the set I had was _The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Invention_. I think the set you have was probably geared toward an older audience. ---
**Author:** ![carnut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnut/32/3531_2.png) [@carnut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnut)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2022, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-dopers-are-a-curious-lot-and-have-been-since-childhood/957324/126 "2022-01-08T23:58:46Z")
I don’t know what the book was called or where it came from but it was essentially maps of each continent after each major border changing upheaval (according to white Europeans, of course). I pored over them and went through a phase of wanting to be a history teacher, which I got over in high school, when I discovered how wrong much of what I already learned was. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2022, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-dopers-are-a-curious-lot-and-have-been-since-childhood/957324/127 "2022-01-09T04:25:26Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Heh. When I was in grad school I taught PDP-11 assembler. I am sore tempted to curse and discurse about my assembler learning stories with the CDC 6400 – but this carries us even further off-topic for this thread. Someday we must do lunch. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2022, 8:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-dopers-are-a-curious-lot-and-have-been-since-childhood/957324/128 "2022-01-09T08:18:21Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > I am sore tempted to curse and discurse about my assembler learning stories with the CDC 6400 – but this carries us even further off-topic for this thread. Someday we must do lunch. 🙂 After we stopped teaching that I taught Cyber assembler, but just for one term so I don’t remember it at all. But Thornton’s book on the CDC6600 is probably the thing that got me interested in computer architecture. ---
**Author:** ![pullin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c57346/32.png) [@pullin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pullin)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2022, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-dopers-are-a-curious-lot-and-have-been-since-childhood/957324/129 "2022-01-09T11:44:02Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > > [@pullin](#): > > > > Sadly, this did not “impress the babes” and I spent most of my time alone in my room.- > > I’m guessing some of the women here would have been impressed when we were girls I would have. Yes, you’re correct. I only needed to impress one, right? (We’re still married 😀) ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2022, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-dopers-are-a-curious-lot-and-have-been-since-childhood/957324/130 "2022-01-09T11:46:00Z")
I remember being thrilled in kindergarten when the teacher introduced me to the dictionary. I read it a lot, though the part I found most fascinating was the pronunciation. I remember almost getting in trouble once for insisting “quay” could be pronounced like “key” and having to show it to my teacher in the dictionary. I later got a set of Encyclopedias at home. I didn’t read everything in them, but I would go through them and find stuff I considered interesting. My grandparent had encyclopedias and Childcraft (I think the name was), which I’d read. But I didn’t get too far in the Encyclopedia Britanica, as it was rather old, with tiny print, few images to illustrate anything, and just huge books that were hard to carry. It just seemed more wordy and less interesting. I expected at the time that I’d grow into them–that they were more adults encyclopedias, for serious research instead of just browsing like the worldbooks. I did get the encyclopedia programs when I got older, but I never really got into them as much. It was too fascinated with websites and such. It felt weird reading static information after that point. ---
**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 9, 2022, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-dopers-are-a-curious-lot-and-have-been-since-childhood/957324/131 "2022-01-09T16:48:17Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > I remember almost getting in trouble once for insisting “quay” could be pronounced like “key” and having to show it to my teacher in the dictionary. Ah… the PITA kicks in early… hehe. 😄 👍 ---
**Author:** ![superwombat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/superwombat/32/16616_2.png) [@superwombat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/superwombat)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2022, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-dopers-are-a-curious-lot-and-have-been-since-childhood/957324/132 "2022-01-09T19:17:47Z")
Microsoft Encarta 95 has a special place in my heart as well, WOW, sound and video! ---
**Author:** ![Tibby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tibby/32/17030_2.png) [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2022, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-dopers-are-a-curious-lot-and-have-been-since-childhood/957324/133 "2022-01-09T19:50:02Z")
Remember the annoying ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA kid? [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/SbQFXWlVpIU/hqdefault.jpg "1990 - ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA COMMERCIAL with ANNOYING KID") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbQFXWlVpIU) ---
**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 9, 2022, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-dopers-are-a-curious-lot-and-have-been-since-childhood/957324/134 "2022-01-09T20:13:33Z")
Yes! Thanks for that trip down memory lane 🕶 ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2022, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-dopers-are-a-curious-lot-and-have-been-since-childhood/957324/135 "2022-01-09T20:30:03Z")
There was another ad with the annoying kid showing a computer (Apple II), a video camera, digital music (on compact disks); and the kid claiming that all that stuff would not help him with his school work. 🤔 [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/lMpgcz6s-eI/hqdefault.jpg ""Encyclopædia Britannica" Commercial 1988") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMpgcz6s-eI) Interesting to notice that all that is inside the current cheapest smartphones. Even the Encyclopedia Britannica if the phone has internet access. > **[Encyclopedia Britannica](https://www.britannica.com/)** > > Explore the fact-checked online encyclopedia from Encyclopaedia Britannica with hundreds of thousands of objective articles, biographies, videos, and images from experts. ---
**Author:** ![Mortimus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e36b37/32.png) [@Mortimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mortimus)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2022, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-dopers-are-a-curious-lot-and-have-been-since-childhood/957324/136 "2022-01-09T20:42:42Z")
I had the World Book set. I read it all the way through, A-Z. Interesting read but the plot was a bit hard to follow 🙂 ---
**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 9, 2022, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-dopers-are-a-curious-lot-and-have-been-since-childhood/957324/137 "2022-01-09T20:56:50Z")
> [@Mortimus](#): > > Interesting read but the plot was a bit hard to follow 🙂 If you think _that_ plot was hard to follow… > **[A Million Random Digits with 100,000 Normal Deviates: RAND Corporation:...](https://www.amazon.com/Million-Random-Digits-Normal-Deviates/dp/0833030477)** > > Buy A Million Random Digits with 100,000 Normal Deviates on Amazon.com ✓ FREE SHIPPING on qualified orders ---
**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 10, 2022, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-dopers-are-a-curious-lot-and-have-been-since-childhood/957324/138 "2022-01-10T00:08:20Z")
> [@Tibby](#): > > Remember the annoying ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA kid? That’s Stan Freberg’s son and Stan is the narrator. ---
**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 10, 2022, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-dopers-are-a-curious-lot-and-have-been-since-childhood/957324/139 "2022-01-10T00:58:34Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > That’s Stan Freberg’s son and Stan is the narrator. Cool! ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2022, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-dopers-are-a-curious-lot-and-have-been-since-childhood/957324/140 "2022-01-10T15:41:02Z")
> [@Ike\_Witt](#): > > I read World Book encyclopedia as a kid. My uncle was a salesman for World Book. Not only did we have World Book encyclopedia, the World Book Year Book and the World Book Science Year, he also had lots of nifty pages from World Book and the supplements that were available as handouts. So I had ones of science experiments and How a Bill Becomes Law (I was pre-Schoolhouse Rock. To me How a Bill Becomes Law wasn’t a musical number – it was a color-coded series of pages from the encyclopedia We also had the Cyclo-Teacher system of Programmed Instruction [https://www.ebay.com/itm/334008779935?chn=ps&\_trkparms=ispr%3D1&amdata=enc%3A1582UggnCT4e3oy6MGZruSQ61&norover=1&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-117182-37290-0&mkcid=2&itemid=334008779935&targetid=1262843335089&device=c&mktype=&googleloc=9001911&poi=&campaignid=15285446355&mkgroupid=129532473733&rlsatarget=pla-1262843335089&abcId=9300702&merchantid=101707544&gclid=CjwKCAiAz--OBhBIEiwAG1rIOpBGEZehMVD1avDdMgXbBj4XU\_HaCQM0iuPhs8ke3ioxK4iRzD40PxoCur0QAvD\_BwE](https://www.ebay.com/itm/334008779935?chn=ps&_trkparms=ispr%3D1&amdata=enc%3A1582UggnCT4e3oy6MGZruSQ61&norover=1&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-117182-37290-0&mkcid=2&itemid=334008779935&targetid=1262843335089&device=c&mktype=&googleloc=9001911&poi=&campaignid=15285446355&mkgroupid=129532473733&rlsatarget=pla-1262843335089&abcId=9300702&merchantid=101707544&gclid=CjwKCAiAz--OBhBIEiwAG1rIOpBGEZehMVD1avDdMgXbBj4XU_HaCQM0iuPhs8ke3ioxK4iRzD40PxoCur0QAvD_BwE) [https://www.ebay.com/itm/265452875690?chn=ps&norover=1&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-117182-37290-0&mkcid=2&itemid=265452875690&targetid=1263433204054&device=c&mktype=pla&googleloc=9001911&poi=&campaignid=13917910975&mkgroupid=125280112215&rlsatarget=pla-1263433204054&abcId=9300614&merchantid=6296724&gclid=CjwKCAiAz--OBhBIEiwAG1rIOvt\_eiH6w24eaAjOdrAEogpEXmElpx0Hz\_REOa\_LehGmWy\_nD3cXwBoCvIEQAvD\_BwE](https://www.ebay.com/itm/265452875690?chn=ps&norover=1&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-117182-37290-0&mkcid=2&itemid=265452875690&targetid=1263433204054&device=c&mktype=pla&googleloc=9001911&poi=&campaignid=13917910975&mkgroupid=125280112215&rlsatarget=pla-1263433204054&abcId=9300614&merchantid=6296724&gclid=CjwKCAiAz--OBhBIEiwAG1rIOvt_eiH6w24eaAjOdrAEogpEXmElpx0Hz_REOa_LehGmWy_nD3cXwBoCvIEQAvD_BwE) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-dopers-are-a-curious-lot-and-have-been-since-childhood/957324.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-dopers-are-a-curious-lot-and-have-been-since-childhood/957324.md?page=8)