The Long and (Mostly) the Short of it

This week’s readings (a book and a magazine) were replete with words appropriate for blogging: aperçu, divertissement, embonpoint, mordant, and rigmarole. Two of them have been posted on previously (the ones in purple, which will take you to their post when clicked on), so that leaves three for today’s post. Let’s take them in reverse alphabetical order just because I can be contumacious sometimes.

Rigmarole is a word I remember hearing my mother say, although she pronounced it as if it were spelled rigamarole. It is apparently an accepted variant spelling of rigmarole, because the Collins English Dictionary says so. But the preferred spelling is rigmarole; the word is a noun for any long or complicated procedure, or for a set of pointless statements or just garbled nonsense. Rigamarole is more fun for an utterance; it has a cadence to it and works well in dactylic tetrameter poetry, as the first part of this sentence might illustrate. (You provide the aperçu.)

Its etymology is almost as much fun as its utterance. While it came to English in 1736 to describe “a long, rambling discourse,” according to etymonline.com, it seems to have come from a colloquial Kentish use from the 1520s, a form of “ragman roll,” which coincidentally will be the name of my next album. “In Middle English a long roll of verses descriptive of personal characters, used in the medieval game of chance called Rageman” was the reference. But the name of the game (rhyme of the ancient blogman) may be from “Anglo-French Ragemon le bon ‘Ragemon the good,’ which was the heading on one set of the verses, referring to a character by that name.” For two hundred years it referred to a long, rambling discourse until 1939 when the idea of a foolish activity or commotion was added. The etymological explanation in itself may qualify as a rigmarole.

Our next word today is divertissement. It is NOT synonymous with diversion, because a diversion can be anything that entertains or distracts, while a divertissement is defined as anything that serves as an interlude in a performance. It is short, while a diversion is of indeterminate length. It is also related to performances: if you’re not watching a performance of a play, opera, or concert, that which provides entertainment between pieces is a diversion. For those who have never been to a play, opera, or concert, consider the Super Bowl commercials or halftime show as divertissement and you have the idea. Short entertainment between the main entertainment.

Divertissement came to English directly from the French in about 1720. The French word means amusement or diversion, but its English meaning is influenced by the Italian word divertimento, used in music for a piece of music either providing light amusement or using a small group of performers.

Finally, let’s get an aperçu at aperçu. Aperçu (pronounced to rhyme with “at her sea” if you’re still on that poetry kick) is a quick glance, or a glimpse of something. It can also mean a quick estimate or insight, or just an outline or summary. Whatever your use, it should be short and quick, not a rigmarole.

Aperçu, it won’t likely surprise you given the cedilla, is from the French word of the same spelling (although cedillas are also used in Portuguese, Catalan, Old Spanish, and Visigoth, which is probably where you encountered it.) It came to English in the 1820s. The French got it from Latin, from ad percipere, to perceive. Get it? Or was that too much of an aperçu?

Anyway, that’s the long and the short of it. Mostly the short.