I had a friend who used to use quotes this way - drove me crazy. He defended it by saying that it only “highlighted the important bits” and asked me how it could be taken wrong. I emailed this sentence back:
The senator was seen out on the town last night with his “wife”.
He hasn’t misused them since. 
That is a very good example - I guess I use them to highlight things where I don’t know all the facts, or where I think a word used by the original person may have multiple meanings. So in the case of “awareness”, I was thinking “well, does that mean he’s run into this before, or researched it before, or is remembering a thread on here, or has found a citation in the past, or…” At times I think too scientifically and over analyze things.
That is where he was told he was wrong.
Now, subsequently, there was a batch of perhaps not directly to the point colloquy between Una Persson and Q.E.D. over the assertion from Reality Chuck that the use by Ed of quoted portions of Cecil’s columns tended to support the concept that Ed is Cecil. In response to this back and forth, Exapno Mapcase began to demand that those in the know (SDSAB members and Administrators, presumably), such as Dex and Una, provide a straight answer. But Dex did quite clearly say that Exapno was wrong, first.
Where did Exapno say that Ed *was * Cecil? Or are you saying that describing Ed as Cecil’s editor directly contradicted something Exapno said, and if so what?
Really, Princhester?
Exapno’s first post in this thread:
<fingers in ears>
LALALALALALALA I CAN’T HEAR YOOUUUUUUUU
Boy, I’ll say he is.
This one time we were standing on some rocks at NWU looking over the lake at the moon and the skyline and Cecil says to me, he says “Nate, You ever wonder…”
Hey, wait a minute…
Is this thing on?
Nevermind.
Don’t drag me into this. I ain’t got a dog in this fight.
Actually, you are right. I’d missed the obvious implication of Exapno saying that Ed was “the current Cecil”. And **CKDH ** did say that Ed was not Cecil.
The problem is, Exapno is clearly wrong on this point on at least one level. As he says himself, Cecil is a character. He’s a copyrighted character. Ed is (one assumes) an actual person. He is not Cecil. Any more than I would be Bugs Bunny if I were solely responsible for the production of every aspect of all cartoons starring that character.
I would heartily concur with you were this not General Questions. All else aside, this is not the forum for perpetuating myths, but for dispelling them.
So in your opinion, Princhester, a plausible reading of the above sentence is, “Yes, of course Ed writes the columns that appear under Cecil Adams’s name, and is the only one to do so, and has done so for a long time, but he is NOT literally named Cecil Adams”? You think that Dex thinks that Exapno is actually laboring under the misapprehension that Ed’s true name is Cecil Adams?
If so, I think that’s an exceptionally strained interpretation, and we’ll have to agree to disagree.
No, except for the last bit this is not a plausible reading of what **Dex ** said. Why do you think it is?
**Dex ** didn’t respond to much of what **Exapno ** said. He’s not obliged to and he didn’t. What he did say was quite possibly literally true for all you know.
You seem to be amongst a relatively small minority of long term posters who don’t understand that there is a game going on (if you do understand this, it is not apparent). **Exapno ** understands this:, at worst he doesn’t think this is the right time and place for the game. In games of this sort, people play with words and walk pretty close to the line of misinformation without quite going over it.
Speaking for myself, I trust Dex.
Dex has said, more or less, that Ed is an employee working for Cecil. Any other interpretation of his words is incredibly strained.
If Dex says that, it’s good enough for me. There is a real Cecil Adams who has been head of the Straight dope since the beginning, he has employed several editors and fact checkers, the current and longstanding one being Ed Zotti.
Why is this hard to accept?
It is possible that he works under a pseudonym, that the real Cecil has been photographed a few times, and isn’t so rude in person as he projects in his columns.
:rolleyes:
Thank you for that helpful comment, Gadarene.
On the off chance that this isn’t a whoosh:
Editors and “fact checkers” don’t remain in the same place for 30 years. It’s plausible to write a column for that long, but not plausible to edit it that long for somebody else.
Reputable magazines have published photographs of the same person, identified respectively as Zotti and Adams.
The Wall Street Journal has identified Zotti as the author of the column since 1978.
Zotti has published a book of SDMB-like material, obviously based on the column, without any attribution or acknowledgement of a separate Cecil Adams, which would be unthinkable if they were in fact two separate people.
Many of the biographical asides in the early columns are inconsistent with Zotti’s life, but those after 1978 are consistent, suggesting a change in authorship at that time.
People here are just in denial of the simple truth: Ed writes the column once a year for Unca Cece, when He’s busy delivering all the toys.
I’m not convinced that it is unthinkable. Perhaps you would care to step over here and explain why it is so. Be prepared to cite the actual legal principles that make it so.
If you want to really be outraged over something, I hear that Teller can actually talk.