Pseudonyms: Sports

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

A pseudonym is a more formal, permanent, and oftentimes a legal name change. 

Some sports pseudonyms include:

Joe Louis (formerly 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)
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 while waiting to bat or when he looked sad after a losing game.

Here is a rather complicated - and confusing - sports name change. Abdul-Karim al-Jabbar, a former football running back 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.

Cloud Cult

Feel Good Ghosts Tea-Partying Through Tornadoes

Cloud Cult is an experimental indie rock band originally from Duluth and later based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Led by singer-songwriter Craig Minowa, the group's name was inspired by ancient prophecies of indigenous North Americans.  

Minowa, who has identified as having 1/16th Native American ancestry, has noted that the band's name and early philosophy were heavily influenced by indigenous spiritualities and a deep ecological respect for the land.  

Their early albums, such as Who Killed Puck, incorporated these philosophies into the music’s spiritual themes. The band is also well-known for its strict environmental practices, reflecting an indigenous-inspired respect for the natural world.  

The band is unique for including visual artists on stage who create paintings during live performances, which are then auctioned off to support charities or environmental causes. Much of their work also deals with themes of grief and purpose following the tragic loss of Minowa's young son in 2002. 

Their website is cloudcult.com

On stage 2017 By Jonathunder - Own work, GFDL 1.2, Link

Blah Blah Blah and Yada Yada

Saying "blah blah blah" (it seems to be said in threes) or "yada yada" (in twos and threes) sounds like total nonsense, but here we want to know more.

If you’re telling a long-winded story or giving confusing directions, someone might say "blah blah blah.”  “Blah” functions as a nothing word. “Blah” as a noun is defined as “silly or pretentious nonsense.” As an adjective, it means “dull and unattractive," as in "What a blah day."

It’s a 20th-century word, and its earliest written accounts in the Oxford English Dictionary come from a 1918 diary. It may have come from the French word blasé, which has been carried over into English, meaning “apathetic to pleasure or life, especially as a result of excessive indulgence or enjoyment.” If you’re feeling blah or blasé about something in your life, it may be because it’s boring or repetitive. 

You might hear someone say that they "have the blahs,” which is a colloquial phrase for mild depression. Punk rocker Iggy Pop released an album called “Blah-Blah-Blah,”and the title track “Blah-Blah-Blah” spoke to disaffection with the world.

I have also heard people use this phrase as a sentence ending, meaning a kind boring et cetera. "We wanted to go to dinner, couldn't decide on a place, stayed home and blah, blah, blah."

That last usage makes me think of "yada yada," which is most closely associated with an episode of the TV series Seinfeld. George's new girlfriend Marcy, likes to say "yada yada yada" to shorten her stories. Marcy tells him that her ex-boyfriend had visited her the night before, "and yada yada yada, I'm really tired today." That leaves the tadas up to interpretation. Did March have sex with her ex?

While Seinfeld popularized the phrase in the 1997 episode "The Yada Yada," it definitely did not invent it. Its linguistic roots are generally agreed to be that "yada yada" is an onomatopoeic evolution of the British word "yatter," which means to talk pointlessly or at length. This likely stems from the older word "chatter." By the 1940s and 50s, variations like "yatter-yatter" or "yaddega-yaddega" were appearing in American slang and comedy routines to mimic the sound of someone droning on.

1940s and 0s Vaudeville comedians often used "yadda yadda" or "yatata yatata" as a "button" for a joke—a way to signal that a character was talking too much without the comedian having to write actual dialogue for them.

It was used in a 1980 commercial for Federal Express, and it appeared in the 1989 film Parenthood, where a character says, "Then it's yada yada yada, and you're out the door."

There is often a misconception that "yada yada" is a Yiddish phrase. While it sounds phonetically similar to many Yiddish expressions and was frequently used by Jewish comedians in the Borscht Belt circuit, it is not actually a Yiddish word. Its popularity in New York-centric comedy helped create that association. The Seinfeld writers reportedly picked up the phrase because it was a common "filler" used by people in the industry when they were pitching scripts and didn't want to explain every minor plot point.

Pulling Out All the Stops

Though someone saying that they are “Pulling Out All the Stops” today probably means they will be making a huge effort, the real meaning is much more musical.

In the late 19th century, organists used stops to change volume on a pipe organ when they played. 

Organ stops are mechanisms—drawknobs, levers, or tablets—that allow an organist to select specific sets of pipes (ranks) to play, enabling a massive variety of timbres and volumes. Each set, or "stop," has a unique sound, typically classified into principal, flute, string, or reed families. They are designated by pitch (e.g., 8ft, 4ft)

So, pulling out all the stops is the loudest an organ can play. Go for it!

Really want to dig deep into that organ part? Watch here.

The Mythology of Absinthe

His glass has the milky version produced by the ritual,
while hers is still straight green absinthe.

In late 19th-century Paris, absinthe was the drink of choice for the avant-garde. Because it was high-proof and relatively cheap, it became the fuel for the "Green Hour" (L'Heure Verte), a daily ritual in cafes. It was immortalized by figures like Vincent van Gogh, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Oscar Wilde, and a number of poets and writers as being a drink to summon "the Muse."

Unlike wine, absinthe required a specific, almost alchemical ritual that involved dripping iced water over a sugar cube perched on a slotted spoon, which made the drink turn cloudy white. This theatricality made it feel more like a potion than a beverage. The myth was solidified by a very successful propaganda campaign. In the late 19th century, the French wine industry was nearly destroyed by a blight (phylloxera). As wine prices soared, people turned to absinthe.

But once the wine industry recovered, they viewed absinthe as a direct threat to their market share. They teamed up with the growing Temperance movement to portray absinthe as a "cocaine-like" drug that turned men into criminals. The final blow might have come in 1905, when a Swiss man murdered his family after a day of drinking. While he had consumed a massive amount of wine and brandy, the media focused exclusively on the two glasses of absinthe he had drunk. This "Absinthe Murder" led to the drink being banned in most of Europe and the U.S. by 1915.

That ban stayed in place for nearly a century, which only fueled the mystery. When it was finally legalized again in the late 1990s and early 2000s, people realized it was essentially just a very strong, anise-flavored spirit—but by then, the legend of the "forbidden" hallucinogenic green liquor was already permanent.

Absinthe is legal to purchase in the United States, but only in a specific, regulated form. The key requirement is that any absinthe sold in the U.S. must be “thujone‑free,” meaning it contains less than 10 parts per million (ppm) of thujone, the compound found in wormwood. This standard was set by the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) and the FDA.  legalclar... +1

What “legal absinthe” means in the U.S. is that wormwood is allowed, but the final spirit must test as thujone‑free (<10 ppm). Since 2007, producers have been allowed to use the word absinthe on labels again, as long as they meet federal requirements. Labels cannot imply hallucinations, mind‑altering effects, or use “absinthe” as the sole brand name. Many states allow retail sales, though local alcohol laws vary.

So, is this “true” absinthe? It depends on what you mean by true. Traditional European absinthe often contains more thujone (up to ~35–38 mg/L). U.S. absinthe must stay under 10 mg/L, but chemically and flavor‑wise, it’s otherwise made the same way using wormwood, anise, and fennel, which give it a unique "licorice" kind of taste.

Modern research shows the old myths about hallucinations were exaggerated; the effects were mostly due to very high alcohol content, not thujone. The primary botanical in absinthe is Artemisia absinthium (Grand Wormwood). Wormwood contains a chemical compound called thujone. In the 1800s, doctors performed flawed experiments on animals, injecting them with high concentrations of wormwood oil. This caused seizures, leading scientists to claim that absinthe was a dangerous neurotoxin that caused "absinthism"—a condition characterized by hallucinations and madness.

Modern analysis shows that traditional absinthe contains only trace amounts of thujone—far too little to cause hallucinations. The "madness" seen in users was actually just severe chronic alcoholism, combined with the fact that absinthe was often bottled at 45% to 74% alcohol. Modern American absinthes typically range from 45% to 75% ABV (Alcohol by Volume), which translates to 90 to 150 proof. While that might seem startlingly high compared to a standard bottle of 80-proof vodka or gin, there is a functional reason for the high alcohol content.

The high proof isn't just for "kick"—it’s a chemical necessity for the botanicals. The signature ingredients (anise, fennel, and grand wormwood) are rich in essential oils. These oils stay dissolved in high-proof spirit but would separate or "louch" prematurely if the alcohol content were lower. This is why absinthe turns milky when you add icy water in that old ritual. By lowering the ABV to around 11%–15% in the glass, the oils are forced out of the solution, creating that famous cloudy appearance and releasing the floral aromas, though some people go for the stronger alcoholic straight absinthe.

Read more about how poets and writers were associated with absinthe
and la fée verte, the Green Fairy, a muse who whispered inspiration to drinkers.