Just think of the tragedy of teaching children not to doubt. - Clarence Darrow, lawyer and author (18 Apr 1857-1938) 

In medieval French, there was a set expression rifle et rafle.  These words are from the verbs rifler, to spoil or strip, and raffler, to carry off.  The phrase referred to the plundering of the bodies of the dead on the battlefield and the carrying off of the booty.  The French phrase moved into English in the forms rif and raf or riffe and raf, which meant at first every scrap, from which we may guess that medieval plunderers were extremely thorough.  It’s known by at least 1338 (it appears in Mannyng’s Chronicle of English of that date).  Later it shifted sense through a series of stages, first referring to one and all, or everybody, and then later taking on the idea of the common people, those of no special social standing.  The phrase was abbreviated to riff-raff and can be found in Gregory’s Chronicle of London of about 1470.  It seems to have taken some decades longer for it to have gone even further downhill and for it to be associated in particular with the dregs of society.  We’re familiar with descendants of both of the original old French words in English, by the way.  Riffler is the origin of our riffle in the card-shuffling sense, amongst others, and of rifle, for searching hurriedly through possessions for something, or to steal.  It also gave rise to the firearms sense, since a rifle takes its name from the spiral grooves cut in the barrel of such a gun to improve its accuracy; this comes from a different sense of the French word, meaning to graze or scratch.  In the early nineteenth century raffish appeared.  This adjective originally referred to somebody who was disreputable or vulgar.  Only later did it acquire the undertones it now has of a person who is attractively unconventional.  This may have come from the second half of riff-raff, or from raff, which had survived by itself in dialect usage in much the same sense of the lowest class of the population.  https://www.worldwidewords.org/qa-rif1.html  

Pulitzer Prizes were awarded at Columbia University May 6, 2024.  Included were:  Night Watch, by Jayne Anne Phillips, a beautifully rendered novel set in West Virginia's Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in the aftermath of the Civil War where a severely wounded Union veteran, a 12-year-old girl and her mother, long abused by a Confederate soldier, struggle to heal and Primary Trust, by Eboni Booth, a simple and elegantly crafted story of an emotionally damaged man who finds a new job, new friends and a new sense of worth, illustrating how small acts of kindness can change a person's life and enrich an entire community.  Find other titles at https://www.npr.org/2024/05/06/1248897860/pulitzer-prize-winners-2024   

The Scorpion and the Frog is an animal fable which teaches that vicious people cannot resist hurting others even when it is not in their own interests.  This fable seems to have emerged in Russia in the early 20th century.  A scorpion wants to cross a river but cannot swim, so it asks a frog to carry it across.  The frog hesitates, afraid that the scorpion might sting it, but the scorpion promises not to, pointing out that it would drown if it killed the frog in the middle of the river.  The frog considers this argument sensible and agrees to transport the scorpion. Midway across the river, the scorpion stings the frog anyway, dooming them both.  The dying frog asks the scorpion why it stung despite knowing the consequence, to which the scorpion replies:  "I am sorry, but I couldn't resist the urge.  It's my character."  The earliest known appearance of this fable is in the 1933 Russian novel The German Quarter by Lev Nitoburg.  The fable also appears in the 1944 novel The Hunter of the Pamirs, and this is the earliest known appearance of the fable in English.  The Hunter of the Pamirs is an English translation of the 1940 Russian novel Jura by Georgii Tushkan.  In the English-speaking world, the fable was made famous by the 1955 film Mr. Arkadin.  It is recounted in a soliloquy by the movie's villain, played by Orson Welles.  A likely precursor to The Scorpion and the Frog is the Persian fable of The Scorpion and the Turtle, which appears in a number of Persian texts from the late 15th century.   

greenmail  (GREEN-mayl)  noun  The practice of buying a large quantity of a company’s stock as a means of hostile takeover, then selling it back to the company at a higher price.  verb tr.:  To subject a company to this tactic.   Earliest documented use:  1983.

Death is not extinguishing the light; it is putting out the lamp because the dawn has come. - Rabindranath Tagore, poet, philosopher, author, songwriter, painter, educator, composer, Nobel laureate (7 May 1861-1941)  A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg   

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2811  May 8, 2024