Well, I be dogged. Heard about shaving hair off your arm (or face), cutting hanging rope, tatami mats, strips of paper hanging from a thread by a paper clip, and other fun stuff, but I never heard till now of testing an edge on a straw.

Live & learn.

Cutting soft wood cleanly across the grain is a pretty good test: soft wood because it's easy to crush the fibers rather than slice them unless your blade's very sharp. But I suppose flourishing your sword & sharpening a pencil isn't very dramatic.

clint