Until I posted my previous entry in this thread, I always thought the word was "rigamarole" and pronounced it accordingly. Now I know how to spell it correctly, and I presume I was wrong in sounding the first "a". I'm not sure I approve.
Can you elaborate or link to your previous entry? Both spellings and pronunciations are acceptable, but I have no idea which one you claim is 'wrong'.
Well, I just looked it up in my OED, and it does indeed show the spelling as "rigmarole" but in the pronunciation guide it seems to suggest a subtle "eh" sound, as indicated by an upside down "e" in parentheses.
Looks like in British (and probably Australian and Canadian English therein) there's nothing but there is an option, probably dialectically variant, for a schwa, that's that sound. It's the sound at the end of "comma" and the sound after the L in "elephant".
Webster says that rigamarole is an acceptable variant. It's actually the only one I've ever known, but I've used improper spellings before or confused words (I used to say flaunt the rules and not flout, but don't repeat that). Apparently rigmarole is derived from 'ragman roll' a type of catalogue.
I won't tell if you don't tell anybody that I used to confuse flounder and founder all the time (not that I've actually used those words in conversation, like ever).
Throw the fish flounder into the mix and everything gets fuggled. It's like, are you a fish (flounder), creating something (founder), or struggling to gain grown (flounder)? Shit or get off the pot, bruh.
In that context I was metaphorically a ship, foundering in the water (which I imagine to mean tipping to one side and losing ability to navigate, probably starting to sink). But I said floundering, which I suppose means swimming around like a fish?
The waiter had lost the flounder, which went wriggling and sliding under tables and across the kitchen floor. But luckily the restaurant's founder reached down behind a cabinet and said "Found'er!"
And rigamarole (however you spell it) sounds to me like something I could order in @Homer Potvin 's 'straunt.
I just reminded myself of Cab Calloway's timeless jive dictionary. Thought I'd drop it here for all the squares and ickies out there who don't collar the jive.
It's my own invention, because I used to write restaurant a lot in my journal (when I worked at one) and it took too damn long to type!! I know the u is in the wrong place, but I like it, so it stays.
Also, I just remembered, it originated decades ago (naming things in this way) back when people were calling pizza 'za'. We started using the most descriptive syllable of a word as a stand-in for the word itself, and sometimes you need to add just a bit or change it slightly to make it clear. Hence things like monade for lemonade, or maybe just nade. Hah! Just reminded me, I love those commercials where the 2 pseudo-valley girls are talking. Was this nationwide, or just in my region? Let me see if I can find it... Here: And the immortal followup: Lol new title for this thread: What na wa did ya la tada? ... To which, of course, the only acceptable response is "I don't kna, what na wa did YA latada?"
^^ Incidentally, when I said on another recent thread that I frequently crack myself up and make myself laugh like a lunatic, it's usually playing around with words and sentence structure like this. I think I first latched onto a lot of it from Monty Python's Flying Circus when I was young.
I was appalled when I found out that 'za' is in the official Scrabble dictionary. I don't care if there aren't many good short z words--it's not a real word, damn it. The only people who actually talk like that are ninja turtles.
