ORIGIN & MEANING OF WORDS

[Cassi]

While reading a post by Devlin, the word "Rigamarole" was used.  It is a word that I haven't heard said in years and it was kinda nice to hear something from the past.  But then I thought, were did it come from and original meaning.

So here's what I found out:

Rigmarole

Pronounced /ˈrɪgmərəʊl/Help with pronunciation

It now means some lengthy and complicated procedure but an older sense was of an incoherent set of statements or a wandering discourse — I shall try to avoid any such tedious tale, but the history of this word is more than a little odd and takes some recounting.

In medieval times, there was a game called ragman, which seems to have been like consequences but with predefined statements. It used a rolled-up scroll containing descriptions of characters, each with a string attached. Players selected a string at random, the scroll was then unrolled and the associated passage read out, to the hilarity of all present (these were simpler times). There are also some suspicions that the same system was used for a gambling game.

The origin of the name for the game is obscure: the oldest form was rageman, said as three syllables, and this suggests it may have been French in origin — a character called Rageman the Good appeared in some French verses of about 1290. Others think it might have come from rag in the sense of tatters, used as a name for a devil (as in ragamuffin, originally a demon).

The name was transferred to various English statutes at the end of the thirteenth century, which were written on scrolls. With the seals and ribbons of their signers sticking out, these reminded people of the scroll used in the game. The most famous such document was the one in 1291 in which the Scottish nobility and gentry subscribed allegiance to Edward I before John Balliol took the Scots throne.

It seems the terms ragman and ragman roll passed into the language as a description of a long and rambling discourse, no doubt from the disconnected nature of documents like the rolls of allegiance. It later seems to have fallen out of use; it reappeared in the eighteenth century in various spellings, such as riggmon-rowle, but it eventually settled down as rigmarole, in the process losing any clear connection with the older term.

I didn't write the message above but copied and pasted it from World Wide Words.  The comment or word "rag on me man", kinda reminded me of how things were in the 60's like Don't rag on me man.  Seems our language is not as new as we thought.

[Lucy Ross]

Heh, I don't think you meant to post this in the MTF forum.      Although my musician friends are always getting a laugh out of my fondness for discussing etymology at our jam session, so I'm no stranger to yacking about where words came from in unlikely contexts.

My favorite example of et is forte, one syllable, no long A on the end, thank you.  Old English, it refers to one's strongest characteristic, and is also the most robust part of a sword's blade, the section closest to the hilt.   The weakest is close to the point - the foible.  "For-tay" is Latin for loud, "Piano" is its opposite.  The keyboard instrument was originally called the pianoforte, as it had the capability for dynamics that the harpsichord lacked.

[Cassi]

I'm relatively new to posting and really haven't paid attention to where I was posting something so I best start paying more attention.

Kewl definitions by the way.

[Janes Groove]

According to Webster's forte can be pronounced fort or fortay.  Either variant is acceptable.

. . . and that's no malarkey.

[Devlyn]

While reading a post by Devlin, the word "Rigamarole" was used.  It is a word that I haven't heard said in years and it was kinda nice to hear something from the past.  But then I thought, were did it come from and original meaning.

So here's what I found out:

Rigmarole

Pronounced /ˈrɪgmərəʊl/Help with pronunciation

It now means some lengthy and complicated procedure but an older sense was of an incoherent set of statements or a wandering discourse — I shall try to avoid any such tedious tale, but the history of this word is more than a little odd and takes some recounting.

In medieval times, there was a game called ragman, which seems to have been like consequences but with predefined statements. It used a rolled-up scroll containing descriptions of characters, each with a string attached. Players selected a string at random, the scroll was then unrolled and the associated passage read out, to the hilarity of all present (these were simpler times). There are also some suspicions that the same system was used for a gambling game.

The origin of the name for the game is obscure: the oldest form was rageman, said as three syllables, and this suggests it may have been French in origin — a character called Rageman the Good appeared in some French verses of about 1290. Others think it might have come from rag in the sense of tatters, used as a name for a devil (as in ragamuffin, originally a demon).

The name was transferred to various English statutes at the end of the thirteenth century, which were written on scrolls. With the seals and ribbons of their signers sticking out, these reminded people of the scroll used in the game. The most famous such document was the one in 1291 in which the Scottish nobility and gentry subscribed allegiance to Edward I before John Balliol took the Scots throne.

It seems the terms ragman and ragman roll passed into the language as a description of a long and rambling discourse, no doubt from the disconnected nature of documents like the rolls of allegiance. It later seems to have fallen out of use; it reappeared in the eighteenth century in various spellings, such as riggmon-rowle, but it eventually settled down as rigmarole, in the process losing any clear connection with the older term.

I didn't write the message above but copied and pasted it from World Wide Words.  The comment or word "rag on me man", kinda reminded me of how things were in the 60's like Don't rag on me man.  Seems our language is not as new as we thought.

I was flabbergasted trying to figure out who Devlin was. 

[Megan.]

I was flabbergasted trying to figure out who Devlin was.  [emoji23]

She's your evil (good?) twin [emoji6]

Sent from my MI 5s using Tapatalk

[Devlyn]

No good comes from me! 

[Cassi]

I was flabbergasted trying to figure out who Devlin was. 

sorry about the mispell Devlyn Marie!

[Cassi]

She's your evil (good?) twin [emoji6]

Sent from my MI 5s using Tapatalk

Yep!  Just like Meghan is Megan's doppleganger.

[Cassi]

According to Webster's forte can be pronounced fort or fortay.  Either variant is acceptable.

. . . and that's no malarkey.

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:
Switch to new thesaurus
Noun   1.   malarkey - empty rhetoric or insincere or exaggerated talk; "that's a lot of wind"; "don't give me any of that jazz"
idle words, jazz, malarky, nothingness, wind
talk, talking - an exchange of ideas via conversation; "let's have more work and less talk around here"
Based on WordNet 3.0, Farlex clipart collection. © 2003-2012 Princeton University, Farlex Inc.
malarkey also malarky
noun
Slang. Something that does not have or make sense:
balderdash, blather, bunkum, claptrap, drivel, garbage, idiocy, nonsense, piffle, poppycock, rigmarole, rubbish, tomfoolery, trash, twaddle.
Informal: tommyrot.
Slang: applesauce, baloney, bilge, bull, bunk, crap, hooey.
The American Heritage® Roget's Thesaurus. Copyright © 2013, 2014 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

[Devlyn]

I was flabbergasted trying to figure out who Devlin was. 

sorry about the mispell Devlyn Marie!

I've been bamboozled! All this jibber jabber is making my head spin! 

[Cassi]

sorry about the mispell Devlyn Marie!


I've been bamboozled! All this jibber jabber is making my head spin! 

Definition of jibber-jabber in US English:

jibber-jabber
verb
[no object]informal

    Talk in a rapid and excited way that is difficult to understand.
    'he was jibber-jabbering with his wife through the entire first piece'
    'he's a happy kid, always jibber-jabbering'

[Laurie]

No good comes from me! 

That just isn't true my citified ruffian friend. After I visited with you I trekked on up to Maine. Therefore something good did come from you. I was lucky to escape.  Now hush lest I lambaste ye, lass.

lambaste (v.)

1630s, apparently from baste "to thrash" (see baste (v.3)) + the obscure verb lam "to beat, to lame" or the related Elizabethan noun lam "a heavy blow" (implied by 1540s in puns on lambskin). Compare earlier lamback "to beat, thrash" (1580s, used in old plays). A dictionary from c. 1600 defines Latin defustare as "to lamme or bumbast with strokes." Related: Lambasted; lambasting

[Cassi]

That just isn't true my citified ruffian friend. After I visited with you I trekked on up to Maine. Therefore something good did come from you. I was lucky to escape.  Now hush lest I lambaste ye, lass.

lambaste (v.)

1630s, apparently from baste "to thrash" (see baste (v.3)) + the obscure verb lam "to beat, to lame" or the related Elizabethan noun lam "a heavy blow" (implied by 1540s in puns on lambskin). Compare earlier lamback "to beat, thrash" (1580s, used in old plays). A dictionary from c. 1600 defines Latin defustare as "to lamme or bumbast with strokes." Related: Lambasted; lambasting

You tell her Laurie!

[Megan.]

Yep!  Just like Meghan is Megan's doppleganger.

Except we're both evil [emoji48][emoji48]

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[Cassi]

Except we're both evil [emoji48][emoji48]

Sent from my MI 5s using Tapatalk

No problem.  Stan Against Evil or Neon Joe Werewolf Killer

[Lady Sarah]

What a fascinating conglomerate of buncombe. It seems every time I look up the origins of words, someone says I'm full of it, and then proceed to try to prove I'm wrong.

[Cassi]

What a fascinating conglomerate of buncombe. It seems every time I look up the origins of words, someone says I'm full of it, and then proceed to try to prove I'm wrong.

What's in a Name? The Secret Meaning of Buncombe
see also:    History of Asheville | Biltmore Estate | Asheville Facts & Statistics
Asheville City Tours | Asheville Real Estate | Outdoors & Activities

Buncombe County has a lot to be proud of; surrounded by stunning mountains, it is home to the cultural epicenter of Asheville, and has long history from pioneers to billionaires. The county of Buncombe was named for the captured American Revolutionary Edward Buncombe, but the most common use of the word Buncombe isn't so heroic. Bunk, as in balderdash, claptrap, hogwash, poppycock and drivel, has become the most-often uttered etymological derivative to sully the good name of Buncombe County. The evolution of Buncombe into Bunk can be traced back to the 16th Congress of the United States on February 25, 1820.

Remembering back to High School lessons, most would recall that during that time of Congress, the Missouri Compromise, a measure regarding abolition and the recognition of Missouri as a state, was being hotly contested. Accordingly, members of the House of Representatives had been debating the Compromise at some length when an immediate vote was called on the issue. It was then that North Carolina Representative Felix Walker rose to address the House. His colleagues, knowing Walker's reputation for prolonged and irrelevant oratory, pleaded with him to cut it short -- at which point Walker infamously confessed, "I shall not be speaking to the House, but to Buncombe". It was remarked that his pointless speech "was buncombe," the saying stuck, and soon "buncombe" became synonymous with vacuous, irrelevant speech. As the new meaning of buncombe grew in use, its phonetic spelling "bunkum" was adopted and eventually shortened to the now familiar word "bunk."

Of course, versions of this story do vary slightly. Some claim that Representative Walker stated he was "bound to do some talkin' for Buncombe," or that he "must make a speech for the Buncombe papers." Although the basic facts seem to stay the same, perhaps it's best to keep in mind American Entrepreneur Henry Ford's famous remark, "History is more or less bunk."


Ten points for you mae ladie!

[Megan.]

This thread is full of nincompoops! [emoji16]

Sent from my MI 5s using Tapatalk

[Lady Sarah]

What's in a Name? The Secret Meaning of Buncombe
see also:    History of Asheville | Biltmore Estate | Asheville Facts & Statistics
Asheville City Tours | Asheville Real Estate | Outdoors & Activities

Buncombe County has a lot to be proud of; surrounded by stunning mountains, it is home to the cultural epicenter of Asheville, and has long history from pioneers to billionaires. The county of Buncombe was named for the captured American Revolutionary Edward Buncombe, but the most common use of the word Buncombe isn't so heroic. Bunk, as in balderdash, claptrap, hogwash, poppycock and drivel, has become the most-often uttered etymological derivative to sully the good name of Buncombe County. The evolution of Buncombe into Bunk can be traced back to the 16th Congress of the United States on February 25, 1820.

Remembering back to High School lessons, most would recall that during that time of Congress, the Missouri Compromise, a measure regarding abolition and the recognition of Missouri as a state, was being hotly contested. Accordingly, members of the House of Representatives had been debating the Compromise at some length when an immediate vote was called on the issue. It was then that North Carolina Representative Felix Walker rose to address the House. His colleagues, knowing Walker's reputation for prolonged and irrelevant oratory, pleaded with him to cut it short -- at which point Walker infamously confessed, "I shall not be speaking to the House, but to Buncombe". It was remarked that his pointless speech "was buncombe," the saying stuck, and soon "buncombe" became synonymous with vacuous, irrelevant speech. As the new meaning of buncombe grew in use, its phonetic spelling "bunkum" was adopted and eventually shortened to the now familiar word "bunk."

Of course, versions of this story do vary slightly. Some claim that Representative Walker stated he was "bound to do some talkin' for Buncombe," or that he "must make a speech for the Buncombe papers." Although the basic facts seem to stay the same, perhaps it's best to keep in mind American Entrepreneur Henry Ford's famous remark, "History is more or less bunk."


Ten points for you mae ladie!

I learned about buncombe when I lived in Asheville, Buncombe County, North Carolina. It does get funny when others tell me I'm wrong about what buncombe means, but it happens.