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Chris -- 2018-04-11
The infamous Riot Act entered British statute books in the early 1700s and remained there until the 1970s. Under the provisions of this legislation, a magistrate, by reading aloud a potted paragraph ordering a crowd to disperse, could turn his hearers into criminals if they failed to disappear.
The law may be history, but the idiom that it begat is still with us. To “read {X} the riot act†means to reprimand, tell off, scold. For at least the last century, speakers of English have permuted this figurative phrase into “read {X} the right act.†Those employing this perversion may be thinking of “right act†as “right behavior.†When someone’s actions are wrong, we read to them a description of the right actions, the ones they should be doing.
Several dozen examples on the web. Three of them:
Medical forum:: “But when I got back from my doctor appt. and it was time for her to leave she basically read me the right act, she flew off the handle and got so madâ€
From an 1890 letter: “I read the right act to them and they were all very nice after thatâ€
Post on a teen pregnancy thread: “i was glad to see her sister read her the right act last night. â€
Last edited by kem (2010-02-11 13:24:12)
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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Righteous double-yolker.
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Okay, at first I didn’t see why this would be a double-yolker, but you seem to imply that we’re dealing with two very different senses of the word “act”—one a law, the other a type of action or behavior. I’d always thought of double-yolkers as referring to a reshaping composed of two words completely different from the words of the acorn. But then again, it occurs to me that we’ve never tried to define “double-yolker” more closely before.
Later edit: I noticed that my omission of “different” made this comment a little unclear. Fixed.
Last edited by patschwieterman (2010-02-13 16:53:09)
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Finally! It’s nice to have the origin/meaning of “read {X} the riot act” explained so that the imagery makes sense! This is one expression which simply drives me nuts—and I wish it would completely fall out of use! I don’t even know where to begin to explain how annoying this expression is! But let me try anyway… First, how odd that the notion of scolding is conveyed through the verb “read.” Aarghh! Second, the idiom comes across sounding like “read {X} his rights” so that leads to a whole other set of miscues. Then there’s that crazy nebulous thing “the riot act.” Was someone rioting? And if so, wouldn’t something a little more severe than a scolding be warranted? Aarghh! Double Aarghh!
:-)
Last edited by jorkel (2010-02-13 17:14:07)
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Now, having got that off my chest, I find the eggcorn “read the right act” hilarious: instructions on how to act right!! ...available in written form no less! Gotta love the double reshaping with that interpretation: my favorite kind!
Last edited by jorkel (2010-02-13 17:23:38)
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I hadn’t thought about “read {X} his/her rights,” Joe. I think there is a good chance that this may be a source of some of the instances of “read {X} the right act.”
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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A lovely find, Kem. Fascinating that you should find this so indigestible, Joe, for it remains in common use over here – not so surprising since it remained on the statute books until 1973.
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I think the main problem I had with it, Peter, was that I wasn’t able to glean it’s precise meaning on a number of occasions when I first heard it, then on subsequent occasions no one had a clear explanation of what “the riot act” referred to. I see that it’s intricately related to your nation’s history, but it’s propensity for being misunderstood makes me think that clearer language would be prefered.
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