# Who is Cecil ??
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-cecil/208337
**Category:** About This Message Board
**Created:** [October 19, 2003, 10:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-cecil/208337 "2003-10-19T10:44:49Z")
**Posts on this page:** 12
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@MasterChief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MasterChief)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2003, 10:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-cecil/208337/1 "2003-10-19T10:44:49Z")
I am new here and i would like to know who the hell is this Cecil guy?
I don’t understand why u people praise him as if he was half human half God. I’ve read several of his answers to questions and i must admit it’s quite entertaining and scientifical in he same time.
No one is omniscient, I really think that if this guy, cecil, really exists, he is just one of the staff member and works with the rest of the staff into answering question.
I think they just “invented” a character called Cecil who is omniscient to mystify this site, making it unique, like creating a star in a movie, a hero.
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### Author:  [@Innanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Innanna)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2003, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-cecil/208337/2 "2003-10-19T12:49:23Z")
Cecil is the world’s (universe’s?) smartest being. As such, we believe that he is worthy of respect.
And besides, the little tag under his name says “Perfect Master.” There is bound to be some worshiping for a Perfect Master. Heck, some people climb quite large hills for a word or two with not-so-perfect masters.
There are some who would smite you for saying that Cecil was invented–and others who would agree. If you search for “Cecil” in thread titles, the argument about Cecil’s reality pops up every once in a while. Some of the worship is a bit tongue in cheeck–okay, a lot of it.
And Cecil Adams, in whatever form, existed WAY before the site did. He started writing a weekly column in 1973, after all.
If I missed anything, about 87 people will pop in to add and correct.
Welcome to the boards.
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### Author:  [@Innanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Innanna)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2003, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-cecil/208337/3 "2003-10-19T12:50:46Z")
Also, a link to the FAQ:
[http://www.straightdope.com/faq/officialfaq.html](http://www.straightdope.com/faq/officialfaq.html)
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### Author:  [@Agentakbar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Agentakbar)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2003, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-cecil/208337/4 "2003-10-19T13:25:38Z")
And here’s where it was proven (by me, yay) that Cecil Adams is actually editor Ed Zotti.
[http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=128098&perpage=50&pagenumber=2](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=128098&perpage=50&pagenumber=2)
B.
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### Author:  [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2003, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-cecil/208337/5 "2003-10-19T13:27:21Z")
Moving this to About This Message Board.
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### Author:  [@MasterChief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MasterChief)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2003, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-cecil/208337/6 "2003-10-19T13:51:24Z")
He might be an editor a writer or whatever, but there isn’t “a smartest man” in our world. The term “smartest man” itself is incoherent and fantasist. Besides, being knowledgeable and cultivated isn’t synonym of being smart. smart has something to do with efficient thinking in a short laps of time.
I am not against the idea, it’s rather amusing to have mysteries and secrets. I agree to play the game. I mean why not? We are having questions answered after all, should it be Cecil, the staff or Satan himself…
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### Author:  [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2003, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-cecil/208337/7 "2003-10-19T14:01:18Z")
Think of **Cecil** as more of an ideal than a real person.
Whether he’s a construct of a corporation, or a mythical being from a higher dimension is beside the point. He simply is. And we worship him.
🙂
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### Author:  [@MasterChief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MasterChief)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2003, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-cecil/208337/8 "2003-10-19T14:15:11Z")
Yes NoclueBoy, I figured it out myself 🙂
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### Author:  [@minor7flat5](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minor7flat5)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2003, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-cecil/208337/9 "2003-10-19T17:16:09Z")
You mention elsewhere that you are 23. This means that for as long as you have probably cared, the Internet has existed. As such, you have always had relatively easy access to questionable answers to odd facts and such. Life was not always so.
Many folks (myself included) started reading Cecil’s columns long before the public Internet came in to being. It was so cool to read a newspaper column where someone could ask [“Is it true about Catherine the Great and the horse?”](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_109) or [“Did a French vaudeville star once specialize in trained flatulence?”](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_394). Subjects like this were almost taboo in mainstream newspaper columns. This desire to answer virtually _all_ types of questions with a bit of snarkiness and attitude is classic Cecil Adams.
In time, various forms of discussion around the columnist appeared on the Internet, attracting the people who were originally only fans of the column.
There has been a progression through forum technology here: newsgroups -\> AOL -\> various web-forum products. I have only been around during the use of vBulletin, but many dedicated folks have been around since the first peep on a newsgroup.
These days, I suspect that a substantial fraction of the members here did not come here via the columns/books.
That, in a nutshell, is why this gentleman is respected here: He is the seed crystal around which this community formed.
Your question is kind of like going to a rock star’s fan site and asking why everyone likes the rock star so much.
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### Author:  [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)
#### Post date: [October 22, 2003, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-cecil/208337/10 "2003-10-22T22:06:40Z")
You challenge Cecil’s claim to being the smartest person in the universe? … OK, find anyone else who is seriously making that claim.
No contenders.
In the absence of any competition for the title, it is awarded by default.
And, by the way, we’ve never said Cecil was “omniscient.” He only knows what’s known to humankind and science, he doesn’t “know” what you’re thinking right at this moment, for instance, nor what color socks you’re wearing. If you like, think of Cecil as the ultimate compendium of human knowledge, all wrapped up in one (slightly eccentric) person.
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### Author:  [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)
#### Post date: [October 22, 2003, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-cecil/208337/11 "2003-10-22T22:25:37Z")
AHA!
I’m not wearing socks!
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### Author:  [@Billdo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Billdo)
#### Post date: [October 23, 2003, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-cecil/208337/12 "2003-10-23T01:51:47Z")
There is only one true answer to the question “Who is Cecil?” written by the eloquent **neuro-trash grrrl** in a three and a half year old [thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=19104) with the same title as this one. She [explained](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?postid=334980#post334980):
> [@](#):
>
> Who is Cecil? What is Cecil? Cecil is as the ebb and flow of the tides, as the solar wind dispersing the cosmic dust, as the pulsating cells of the brain. Cecil is the smile on your child’s face as he or she contemplates the knowledge in a brand new encyclopedia set, and the bill you receive for them afterward. Cecil is the dragonfly that soars on bejeweled wings, and the frog that catches the dragonfly as it zooms too low over the pond, and the alligator that eats the frog as it suns itself on a lily pad, the gator-wrestler who kills the alligator, and the heavy beer stein that smashes in the gator-wrestler’s head during a bar brawl in Baton Rouge. Cecil is as the molecular structure of our DNA, and also as the molecular structure of Grandma’s spinach-Velveeta soufflé just before it collapses, and the cheers of jubilation that follow. Cecil is the structural defect in your ice cream cone causing it to break and spill Rocky Road all over your new pants. Cecil is the physical laws that make airplanes fly, and also the physical laws that airplane designers occasionaly forget, causing devastating crashes. Cecil is the cockroach that refuses to die no matter how hard you stomp. Everything is Cecil, nothing is Cecil. Cecil is in all of us, Cecil is in none of us. Contemplating Cecil’s nature leads to cosmic enlightenment, and also migraine headaches.
>
> Does this answer your question?
So, does this answer your question?