17 October 2018

Pseudonyms: Sports

A number of athletes have chosen to use pseudonyms. These are not to be confused with nicknames. For example, Cal Ripken, Jr. was who played in 2,632 consecutive games, over 16 seasons without a game off, which earned him the nickname “Iron Man.”

But a pseudonym is a more formal, permanent and usually legal name change. Some sports pseudonyms include:

Joe Louis (Joseph Louis Barrow)
Chi Chi Rodriguez (Juan Antonio Rodriguez)
Chipper Jones (Larry Wayne Jones, Jr.)
Whitey Ford (Edward Charles Ford)
Babe Ruth (George Herman Ruth, Jr.)
Casey Stengel (Charles Dillon Stengel; originally named after the initials of his hometown of Kansas City, Missouri, or "K.C.")
Chad Ochocinco (Chad Javon Johnson)
Chi Chi Rodriguez (Juan Antonio Rodriguez)
Chipper Jones (Larry Wayne Jones, Jr.)
Cristiano Ronaldo (Cristiano Ronaldo dos Santos Aveiro)

A few interesting name change stories:



Yogi Berra ( born Lawrence Peter Berra) grew up in St. Louis and while playing in American Legion baseball, he received the nickname "Yogi" from his friend Jack Maguire. After seeing a newsreel about India, Jack said that Larry resembled a Hindu yogi whenever he sat around with arms and legs crossed waiting to bat or while looking sad after a losing game.

Another complicated - and confusing - sports name change is that of Abdul-Karim al-Jabbar, a former football running back. He played in the National Football League (NFL) from 1996 to 2000 with the Miami Dolphins, Cleveland Browns, and Indianapolis Colts. He was previously known as Karim Abdul-Jabbar and was born Sharmon Shah. In 1995, Sharmon Shah, a Muslim, was given the name "Karim Abdul-Jabbar" by his Imam.

In his NFL debut, some viewers and even some commentators mistakenly believed that he was the son of former basketball great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Both had attended UCLA.





Basketball player Kareem Abdul-Jabbar had played at UCLA under the name (Ferdinand) Lew(is) Alcindor. In 1968, Alcindor converted to Sunni Islam, but he did not begin publicly using his Arabic name until 1971.

10 October 2018

Erasmus Said...

Many of the adages that have become commonplace in many European languages, are attributed to Erasmus.

Equivalents in English include:

More haste, less speed
The blind leading the blind
A rolling stone gathers no moss
One man's meat is another man's poison
Necessity is the mother of invention
One step at a time
To be in the same boat
To lead one by the nose
A rare bird
Even a child can see it
To walk on tiptoe
One to one
Out of tune
A point in time
I gave as bad as I got (I gave as good as I got)
To call a spade a spade
Hatched from the same egg
Up to both ears
As though in a mirror
Think before you start
What's done cannot be undone
Many parasangs ahead (Miles ahead)
We cannot all do everything
Many hands make light work
A living corpse
Where there's life, there's hope
To have one foot in Charon's boat (To have one foot in the grave)
To cut to the quick
Time reveals all things
Golden handcuffs
Crocodile tears
To lift a finger
You have touched the issue with a needle-point (To have nailed it)
To walk the tightrope
Time tempers grief (Time heals all wounds)
With a fair wind
To dangle the bait
Kill two birds with one stone
To swallow the hook
The bowels of the earth
Happy in one's own skin
Hanging by a thread
The dog is worthy of his dinner
To weigh anchor
To grind one's teeth
Nowhere near the mark
To throw cold water on
Complete the circle
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king
No sooner said than done
Neither with bad things nor without them
Between a stone and a shrine (Between a rock and a hard place)
Like teaching an old man a new language
A necessary evil
There's many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip
To squeeze water out of a stone
To leave no stone unturned
Let the cobbler stick to his last
God helps those who help themselves
The grass is greener over the fence
The cart before the horse
Dog in the manger
One swallow doesn't make a summer
His heart was in his boots
To sleep on it
To break the ice
Ship-shape
To die of laughing
To have an iron in the fire
To look a gift horse in the mouth
Neither fish nor flesh
Like father, like son
Not worth a snap of the fingers
He blows his own trumpet
To show one's heels
A snail's pace

04 October 2018

Crank, cranky and crank it up

Sometimes word origins are not very complicated. Such is the case with the English word "crank" (noun) and "cranky" (adjective).

In our modern usage, cranky means describes someone who is irritable or ill tempered.

Etymologically, our use goes back to late 19th century Germany. The German word spelled krank meant to be sick or cross or out of sorts. English speakers anglicized the word and swapped the k for a c and added the -y to make the adjective.

What's the connection to crank meaning the lever used to make a rotary or oscillatory motion to a rotating shaft? None that I can find.

In the early days of automobiles and airplanes, you need to crank the engine to get it started. That handle or propeller turned the crankshaft of the engine and created the initial spark. Much later, when cars no longer needed that hand starting, people began to use the work in phrases such as "crank it up" to mean to kick up or increase something. "Crank up the volume" might still be used, though even that is less likely to mean turning a volume dial, but rather to click a volume icon.