Product Description

Is it true what they say about Catherine the Great and the horse? How do they measure snow? How do they get the stripes into toothpaste? Do cats have navels? How are coins taken out of circulation? Why do men have nipples?

Cecil Adams has tackled these questions and more in his outspoken, uncompromising, and always entertaining weekly newspaper column, The Straight Dope. Now the best of these questions and answers--from the profound to the ridiculous--are collected in book form so that you can know a little about a lot. Exploding myths, revealing shocking truths, and explaining all major mysteries of the cosmos, The Straight Dope contains more than four hundred fully-indexed entries on topics ranging from sex to consumer products, science to history, and rock 'n' roll to much, much more!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1547341 in Books
• Published on: 1998-02-24
• Released on: 1998-02-24
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 432 pages

From Amazon.com
This collection of Adams' best newspaper columns answers with erudition and wit all the weird questions Americans ponder to distraction. Why didn't the Incas invent the wheel? Is the frequency of bald women on the increase? And how many square feet of flesh on the human body? Incredibly sarcastic, knowledgeable and entertaining, The Straight Dope makes a great bathroom book or gift book or personal treasure.

From the Publisher
This is the book that STARTED IT ALL! It's Cecil's very first book collection! We've been dying to publish this book in trade paperback to match the other book in the series ever since we started publishing the "Straight Dope" columns in book form. And now we're finally able to make this format available to all of the fans who have Cecil's other books in this size. So enjoy! --E. Zack, Sr. Editor

From the Back Cover
"[THE STRAIGHT DOPE] TELLS MORE THAN ANYONE NEEDS TO KNOW ABOUT 1,001 THINGS."
--New York Daily News

"Cecil Adams is the Answer Man . . . . Though he is cantankerous, a wiseacre, and a compulsive punster, you can't help but like a guy who knows where all the baby pigeons are, and why wintergreen Life Savers emit pint-sized clouds of blue sparks when chewed in the dark."
--Newsday