The Straight Dope on..... Cecil Adams

Is it true that Cecil Adams DOES NOT EXIST?:eek: :confused: :eek: :confused:

In the “Is Snopes Ever Wrong?” thread on this page, evidence was provided that he does not exist. Was this in jest?

What is the Straight Dope?
:frowning:

Say it isn’t so!

::Holds gun to temple awaiting the truth::

Yes, somone please enlighten us. I was crushed when one of my coworkers first suggested that Cecil Adams was just a front and not a real person. If you read the books in chronological order, he first occasionally mentions a girlfriend and then a wife and then rugrats, leading one to assume a real person. Are Cecil and his brood merely creations?

Perhaps better suited to ATMB. I’ll move it for you.

-xash
General Questions Moderator

The Straight Dope on this can be found in this thread. The upshot is that the name Cecil Adams is (or was) a registered trademark of The Chicago Reader.

OK, this is against my better judgment, but since Ilsa can’t be e-mailed:

[sp] Years ago, there was an article in “Discover” magazine that strongly suggested that Cecil’s various “editors” were in fact the “Cecil” of the moment. Little Ed has, of course, been Cecil for a very long time, if this is correct. Ed, of course, denied being anything but a front for the terrible-tempered Cecil. [/sp]

Any minute now, someone will be doing a parody of “Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.”

Let’s look at this logically. Someone definitely writes the columns. That someone is either one person, or a group of people. If we assume that it’s a group of people, then the logical assumption would be that that group is the SDSAB. However, as a member of the SDSAB, I can state that I have never written or significantly contributed to one of Cecil’s columns. And when a column does have significant input from one or more SDSAB members, that member or members is acknowledged. Therefore, Cecil’s columns are not written by the SDSAB. If, then, we assume that “Cecil” is a group of people, we must assume some sort of “shadow staff”, over and above the regular staff, which is never acknowledged on its own. Occam’s Razor would lead us to discard this possibility.

So we’re left with Cecil’s columns being written by a single person. This person may or may not be legally named “Cecil Adams”. Since we know that the writer of the columns values his privacy, let us assume that the writer of the columns is not legally named “Cecil Adams”, but that that name is a pseudonym. But this is still a far cry from claiming that Cecil doesn’t exist: By comparison, Mark Twain is universally accepted to exist, despite the fact that his real name was Clements. So in what sense can it be said that Cecil is nonexistant?

So, to recap:

Ed Zotti is a real person, who posts stickies and such, and edits for “Cecil Adams.”

“Cecil Adams” is a registered trademark, and in the patent, it states that the name is nothing but fanciful moniker.

It is likely that Ed Zotti is in fact Cecil Adams.

Who posts under the name Cecil Adams? What is their IP?

Does it match Ed Zotti’s?

The SDMB is not going to tell you either of these things.

If you think about this a little, does it really matter who Cecil is? Given the sort of harassment that some people can receive online, I don’t blame her at all for using a pseudonym or three on this Board or elsewhere. She is a public figure, and deserves some level of privacy for herself.

Ya know, Betty Crocker is a registered trademark, too. And she’s most certainly a real person. So the trademark argument means nothing.

Why did you speak of Cecil Adams as a “she”? Do you know something we don’t?

The question is; has a person of the name “Cecil Adams” ever existed, or has a single entity, since 1975, written columns under the nom de plume of Cecil?

Or is Cecil simply a person or persons, subject to change?

Well, first Occam’s Razor only works in metaphysics, not in newspaper column authorship debates. I think Cecil’s diefic status is another thread entirely.

Second, you aren’t allowed to take a premise, add an assumption, disprove the assumption, and claim you’ve disproven the premise. That’s just fancy arm-waving - you didn’t think you could pull that off here, did you?

Just because Unca Cece isn’t the SMSAB or “shadow staff” doesn’t mean he’s always the same person. There’s the possibility that Cecil is a series of people, rather than a simultaneous group. Cecil could also be the pseudonym for a collaborative effort between as few as two people (including, or plus, an editor). Cecil’s work could be rotated through a number of people from week to week.

The thread referenced earlier in this thread implied that the “serial Cecil” hypothesis is in fact the case - that the pseudonym passes from person to person occasionally, but there’s only one Cecil at a time.

But we can assume that: A. No known natural born person or persons possess the legal birth name of Cecil Adams, and write a weekly column for the Chicago Reader; B. Cecil Adams is indeed a fictional name that is the registered trademark of the Chicago Reader and variously applied to a person or a group thereof who generate the weekly Straight Dope column, intellectual property of the Chicago Reader?

It might be profitable for this discussion to study the writing style of the Straight Dope column over the years. You may be able to detect when one person stopped writing it and another began writing it by the tone of the writing, the repeated use of particular words or phrases, the fields of expertise, etc.

Sigh.

Cecil Adams is definitely a real person. The fact that his name is trademarked is a legal protection by the READER.

I don’t know what else to say, except that he gets a real kick out of the speculations.

When’s his birthday?

This is ridiculous.

IS CECIL ADAMS A REAL PERSON?

:mad:

With what authority do you say that, Dex?
Do you know him? (Not trying to be a jerk)

And for God’s sake, when you send him a card, WRITE HIS NAME ON IT!!!

:smiley: