Make Your Point > Archived Issues > RIGAMAROLE

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connect today's word to others: My hilarious momma-in-law uses this word a lot, and it always cracks me up: "Well, we went through all that rigamarole..." The humor and fun might come from the alliteration--rigamarole--and from the four fancy syllables that convey one simple meaning: Bull. Bunk. Baloney. Now, if you're interested in pinning down where rigamarole came from, you'll want to know that it may have evolved as a variant of the phrase "Ragman roll," which, if you Google it, leads you down a rabbit hole of medieval parlor games, feudal Scottish history, and a character known as Ragemon le Bon. Good times! So as best I can tell, a Ragman roll or, later, a rigamarole, was basically any long, involved, tedious piece of writing, and from there, another meaning arose: "a long, involved, tedious process." See if you can recall this close synonym of rigamarole: f____rol is any process or situation that's meaningless, useless, or ridiculous--in earthier terms, it's B.S. (To reveal any word with blanks, give it a click.) make your point with... "RIGAMAROLE" Here's the more common meaning: rigamarole is long, dull, overly complicated stuff in a procedure. Less commonly, rigamarole is long, dull, pointless rambling in speech or writing. Pronunciation: RIG uh muh role Part of speech: Noun, usually the uncountable kind: "all that rigamarole," "this rigamarole." Other forms: You can use "rigamarole" as an adjective: "his rigamarole story," "her rigamarole style of speaking." Here's a rare, alternate adjective: "rigmarolic." And here's an obsolete noun that we should totally bring back: "rigmarolery." Finally, there are tons of alternate forms of "rigamarole;" for example, an alternate spelling common in British English drops the first "a:" "rigmarole" (and the pronunciation, too, shortens to "RIG muh role"). How to use it: When you're tired of phrases like "red tape," "jumping through hoops," and "bureaucratic nightmare," use the funny word "rigamarole," which helps you call attention to how a process is long, pointless, and ridiculous. Often we use the phrase "the rigamarole of something:" the rigamarole of applying for a grant, the rigamarole of the Department of Motor Vehicles, the rigamarole of the club's induction ceremonies. We can add an adjective: academic rigamarole, political rigamarole, gatekeeping rigamarole. And often we just refer to "this rigamarole," "that rigamarole," "the office's rigamarole," etc. examples: In Modern Romance, Aziz Ansari contrasts the bygone tradition of marrying our neighbors with the present rigamarole of finding "the" "perfect" spouse. "Don’t get me wrong — the proper sourcing of material is vital to research, but the rigamarole of punctuation and order is exasperating."    — John Patrick Pullen, TIME, 3 August 2015 study it: Explain the meaning of "rigamarole" without saying "long procedure" or "long rambling." try it out: Fill in the blank: "Thank goodness I'm done with the rigamarole of _____." Example: "Thank goodness I'm done with the rigamarole of defending my thesis." before you review, play: Spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—let your working memory empty out first. Tidbits and Titles! I provide the tidbits; you provide the title. From our previous issue: Here's a quote from a book: "Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb nail." And here are some terms and phrases that often appear in that book: Baker Farm, beauty, blackberry, Concord River, earth, forest, heaven, learned, meadow, morning, red squirrel, snow, thought. What's the book's title? Answer: Walden. Try this today: Here's a quote from a book: "There is grandeur in this view of life...from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been and are being evolved." And here are some terms and phrases that often appear in that book: adapted, allied species, become, believe, divergence, favourable, gradations, hence, modification, offspring, probably, resemble, varieties. What's the book's title? review today's word: 1. The opposite of the adjective RIGAMAROLE is A. SIMPLE. B. FLEXIBLE. C. UNFURLED. 2. In his typical rigamarole style, he _____. A. waved and winked at the audience B. summed up his goals and his plans for reaching them C. meandered between past victories and present pet peeves Answers are below. a final word: Make Your Point is crafted with love and brought to you each weekday morning by Liesl Johnson, a reading and writing tutor on a mission to explore, illuminate, and celebrate words. From Liesl's blog:    36 ways to study words.    Why we forget words, & how to remember them.    How to use sophisticated words without being awkward. To be a sponsor and include your ad in an issue, please contact me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com. Disclaimer: When I write definitions, I use plain language and stick to the words' common, useful applications. If you're interested in authoritative and multiple definitions of words, I encourage you to check a dictionary. Also, because I'm American, I stick to American English when I share words' meanings, usage, and pronunciations; these elements sometimes vary across world Englishes. Answers to review questions: 1. A 2. C