Last March 24th, as I was brushing my teeth before going to bed, I turned on the radio in the bathroom as I always do. Five seconds after turning it on, I heard the name Cecil Adams come up, so naturally I stopped to listen. It was an interview show, “Extension 720 with Milt Rosenberg”, and he was interviewing Ed Zotti, who spent a couple of hours discussing Cecil and the Straight Dope column and books.
WGN put a small snippet of the interview on their web site, so if you are interested, here is the voice of Ed Zotti:
Later, during the call-in portion of the show, a listener said something like "Before I ask my question, I want to say that I read the Straight Dope Message Board all the time, and I think it’s really great!".
I thought it was cute how he pronounces the word “half.” He said it several times while discussing peak oil. I don’t think anyone else in the world can pronounce “half” quite the way mid-westerners do.
Remember that Ed edits Cecil’s columns, so it’s not surprising to find some of Ed’s favorite phrases showing up in Cecil’s works. And vice versa; they’ve been working together so long, it’s not surprising that Ed’s picked up some of Cecil’s pet phrases.