We all know, don’t we, that riffraff is from Middle English riffe raffe, from rif and raf, one and all, from Anglo-Norman rif et raf, rifle et rafle : Old French rifler, to rifle; see rifle2 + Old French raffler, to carry off (from raffle, act of seizing; see raffle1). So, nothing whatsoever to do…
From El llibre de tres (“The book of three”): Tres plers són en aquest món: beure en taverna, jaure en bordell e cagar en prat. Or: Three are the pleasures this world us doth yield: to drink in a tavern, to screw in a brothel, to $hit in a field. The edition currently available of…
De batalla, a legal document published somewhere around here between 1251 and 1255, prescribes the conditions by which litigants must agree to abide before they start amputating: I, such-and-such, swear that that with which I have challenged so-and-so is true, and that I will defend it [?: menar], and on the field I will neither…
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