I was telling someone in the laboratory about the explanation of “OK” column the other day and got a bit of a violent reaction to the name “The Straight Dope”. This reminded me that when I first heard the name (many years ago now) I also said “What does that mean?” So I thought I might as well as ask the question “Where does the name ‘The Straight Dope’ come from?”
It’s definitely not an expression in use around here, and it’s clearly a Yank term. Does it come from the racetrack?
Yes, it is Yank, (although there are some extra explanations, here) :
The Straight Dope
The short answer is that it is U.S. slang from the 2d quarter of the 20th Century for “correct information.”
From the Dope entry in Dictionary of Word Origins: “The sense ‘information’ dates from around 1900.” No explanation is giving for how it evolved from prior meanings (it originated from Dutch doop ‘sauce’).
My Webster’s entry for dope includes, as definition 6, “Slang. information; news.” but includes no etymology. Forgive me, my parents gave this dictionary to me.
I would guess that “Straight” part of it would follow from definitions 7, “reliable; factual; objective”, 8 “cogent; rational”, and/or 11 “thoroughgoing; complete”.
Re-reading that post, I notice that while the information was there, it was buried amidst the attempts at humor.
Straight Dope means Correct Information, specifically, good information not muddled by a lot of BS (unlike the post I linked).