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fandom_grammar2016-10-03 11:54 am
chiroho.livejournal.com) wrote in fandom_grammar2016-10-03 11:54 am
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Answer: What is the origin of "rigmarole"?
Welcome to your first post-hiatus post from Fandom Grammar. As I hope you saw a couple of days ago, the community is back to a weekly posting schedule, and we're expanding our communications beyond LiveJournal to other social media. If you have questions, please submit them as comments to this post, as we'd love to start answering them again.
This week I'll be looking at the origin of the word rigmarole, and what it means today.
You're probably aware of the meaning of rigmarole -- sometimes spelled rigamarole, reflecting its common pronunciation -- but for those who aren't familiar, the Oxford dictionary defines rigmarole as being "a lengthy and complicated procedure", or "a long, rambling story or statement". Merriam-Webster's definition similarly states that it is "a long, complicated, and annoying process, description, etc." While the word has declined in use over the last half century, it's still easy to use in anything you're writing. For example:
All sources suggest that rigmarole is probably an alteration of the phrase ragman roll, which occurred around the mid 18th century. So what's a ragman roll? Merriam-Webster points to the term Rageman or Ragman being a game played in the Middle Ages where a player randomly selected a string attached to a roll of verses and then read the selected verse. The roll of verses was called a ragman roll, and by the 16th century the term had come to mean "a list or catalog". However, the Oxford dictionary indicates that a ragman roll was a legal document recording a list of offences.
While it is likely that there was some sort of a game played the way Merriam-Webster indicates, looking back into Scottish history seems to provide the real origin of the term ragman roll. In 1291, Queen Margaret of Scotland died leaving no clear heir to the Scottish throne. In an effort to avoid a war between the different clans, King Edward of England offered to hear the cases of the claimants and decide who had the most valid claim. Because Edward was concerned about making an unpopular choice, he asked the nobles with whom he met to swear allegience to him by signing the first of the Ragman Rolls. Five years later, on August 28, 1296, Edward again called together the Scots royalty and armies and asked them to swear allegiance to him again and to sign another Ragman Roll. When they signed, the noblemen and clergy affixed their wax seals and often attached their own ribbon to the wax. Two copies of the document from 1296 were preserved in the chapter house at Westminster, while a third was preserved at the Tower of London. As these documents have nearly 2,000 signatures, they are incredibly valuable for researchers.
Despite the fact that we know these documents were called ragman rolls, the derivation of the term ragman isn't entirely clear. Some sources suggest that it was derived from the ribbons attached to the seals on the parchments. But it may also have come from an earlier record created for the purposes of Papal taxation by a man named Ragimunde, whose name was corrupted to Ragman. Regardless, from it we now have the term rigmarole, which reflects not only the length and complexity of that original document, but also my explanation of the origin of the word!
Thanks for stopping by, and please keep coming back for our regular updates here at![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
fandom_grammar.
Sources:
Oxford Dictionaries: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/rigmarole
Merriam-Webster: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rigmarole
Scottish history: http://www.electricscotland.com/history/articles/ragman_rolls.htm
Google ngram search: https://books.google.com/ngrams
This week I'll be looking at the origin of the word rigmarole, and what it means today.
You're probably aware of the meaning of rigmarole -- sometimes spelled rigamarole, reflecting its common pronunciation -- but for those who aren't familiar, the Oxford dictionary defines rigmarole as being "a lengthy and complicated procedure", or "a long, rambling story or statement". Merriam-Webster's definition similarly states that it is "a long, complicated, and annoying process, description, etc." While the word has declined in use over the last half century, it's still easy to use in anything you're writing. For example:
John waited impatiently as Harold went through the rigmarole of locating the correct books to identify their latest client.Interestingly, while still appearing less often in print than rigmarole, the rigamarole spelling was more common towards the end of the 20th century, before declining in use similar to the word as a whole. But where does the word come from?
All sources suggest that rigmarole is probably an alteration of the phrase ragman roll, which occurred around the mid 18th century. So what's a ragman roll? Merriam-Webster points to the term Rageman or Ragman being a game played in the Middle Ages where a player randomly selected a string attached to a roll of verses and then read the selected verse. The roll of verses was called a ragman roll, and by the 16th century the term had come to mean "a list or catalog". However, the Oxford dictionary indicates that a ragman roll was a legal document recording a list of offences.
While it is likely that there was some sort of a game played the way Merriam-Webster indicates, looking back into Scottish history seems to provide the real origin of the term ragman roll. In 1291, Queen Margaret of Scotland died leaving no clear heir to the Scottish throne. In an effort to avoid a war between the different clans, King Edward of England offered to hear the cases of the claimants and decide who had the most valid claim. Because Edward was concerned about making an unpopular choice, he asked the nobles with whom he met to swear allegience to him by signing the first of the Ragman Rolls. Five years later, on August 28, 1296, Edward again called together the Scots royalty and armies and asked them to swear allegiance to him again and to sign another Ragman Roll. When they signed, the noblemen and clergy affixed their wax seals and often attached their own ribbon to the wax. Two copies of the document from 1296 were preserved in the chapter house at Westminster, while a third was preserved at the Tower of London. As these documents have nearly 2,000 signatures, they are incredibly valuable for researchers.
Despite the fact that we know these documents were called ragman rolls, the derivation of the term ragman isn't entirely clear. Some sources suggest that it was derived from the ribbons attached to the seals on the parchments. But it may also have come from an earlier record created for the purposes of Papal taxation by a man named Ragimunde, whose name was corrupted to Ragman. Regardless, from it we now have the term rigmarole, which reflects not only the length and complexity of that original document, but also my explanation of the origin of the word!
Thanks for stopping by, and please keep coming back for our regular updates here at
fandom_grammar.Sources:
Oxford Dictionaries: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/rigmarole
Merriam-Webster: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rigmarole
Scottish history: http://www.electricscotland.com/history/articles/ragman_rolls.htm
Google ngram search: https://books.google.com/ngrams