365* New Words a Year [Merriam Webster] (Workman Publishing) 4/15/8: rigmarole
rigmarole n 1: confused or meaningless talk 2: a complex and sometimes ritualistic procedure
Okay, I don't need a calendar page to remind me of this word, but the etymology explained in the DYK section is outstanding.
In the Middle Ages, Rageman or Ragman was the name of a game in which a player randomly selected a string attached to a roll of verses and read the selected verse. The roll was called a Ragman roll after a fictional king purported to be the author of the verses. By the 16th century, "ragman" and "ragman roll" were being used figuratively to mean "list" or "catalog." Both terms fell out of written use, but "ragman roll" persisted in speech and in the 18th century resurfaced in writing as "rigmarole," with the meaning "a succession of confused, meaningless, or foolish statements." Only in the last century did "rigmarole" (also spelled "rigamarole," reflecting its common pronunciation) acquire its most recent sense, "a complex and ritualistic procedure."
Rating 9/10 ragamuffins.
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A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.' — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood. --Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Self-Reliance"
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