The Wise Old Saying; Don't Associate Yourself With Riff-Raff!

My grandmother has always told me not to associate myself with riff-raff. She would warn me that if you play in trash, you come out smelling like trash. I ignored her of course because what seven-year-old or even an eight or nine-year-old really listen to good advice when it comes from an elder? I later realized that even though this is not a very nice way to be, in this day and time those are true words to live by. I catch myself judging people by who they hang out with all the time. I know it is wrong, and I remind myself of that fact every time I do it. Still, who can really help their thoughts? Anyway, I will get back to the point now. As you all may already know I love to get down to the origins of words, and this is one of them I wanted to know about. Here is what I learned, and I would have never guessed the saying is as old as it is.

The Massacre at Paris, August 10, 1792 – I. Plundering the King’s Cellar at Paris

 

It is believed to come from the French. Rifle et rafle to be exact. Rifler means to strip and raffle means to carry off. See back in medieval time’s people would come and prey upon the dead and would strip them of anything valuable. So the French called these people rifle et rafle.

When the phrase reached the English, they changed it to riffe and raf. In 1338 the saying was recorded in “Mannyng’s Chronicle of English” and, at first, this phrase stood for the same meaning in a sense but eventually changed to mean the lower class or common people. It sounds harsh I know but you have to think about how things were back then. I am not sure it was meant to be a mean statement about common people, but if I had my guess, I would say more than likely it was. After all, most common people were beggars at some point and time. I digress once more so let us continue forward and save that lesson for another day.

Around the 1400’s it was once again recorded (“Gregory’s Chronicle of London”) but this time the spelling had changed a bit to riff-raff. And that is how it has stuck all the way down to modern times. All the while, the phrase was becoming more and more offensive.

Today when you hear someone referred to as riff-raff it normally means the same as it did in the 1400’s. You would be calling them an undesirable person, a person that is not respected, and low in social standings. I personally think of the term to mean someone who is capable of presenting themselves in a good manner and chooses not to. For example; someone who chooses to do bad things and live a bad life. Either way you look at it if you call someone riff-raff they are not to take kindly to it.

So there you have it, the origin of the word riff-raff. I am always looking for more phrases or words like this to learn and talk about so if anyone has any ideas feel free to leave a comment or shoot me an email.