The other day I came across an article on why blogs should ditch comments. In the article, I read the following passage:
Instead of dealing with the rift raft and product pushers, it might be easier to simply shut off the feed back arena and instead focus most of your energy on creating content instead of moderating conversations.
Rift raft? Interesting. So far, I’ve only ever heard and seen riff raff. I wondered if rift raft was either a new variant, or perhaps quite an old one – it wouldn’t be implausible for the word-final voiceless stop /t/ to be deleted, so maybe riff raff is actually more recent. I don’t know anything about the etymology of riff raff, so it’s time to find out some more.
The first Google result for rift raft (which has 33,100 hits) only intrigued me more. On wiki.answers.com, someone has posted the question ‘what if [is] a rift raft?’ and here is the one answer which was posted:
I once heard in a documentary about steamboats on the Mississippi riverthat while the wealthy could afford to travel on steamboats, poor people could not and used small rafts that were called “rift rafts”. From that term came the term “riff raff” meaning poor people and later “people with whom you did not wish to be associated”.
Is this story true? I don’t know, but the documentary was on cable on either the science channel or the discover channel or other reputable channel. Perhaps someone else can confirm this etymology of the term.
How interesting! This does have a suspicious whiff of folk etymology about it, though, so a little bit of follow up using the Oxford English Dictionary is in order. The OED doesn’t have an entry for rift raft, but here are some of the details for riff raff:
riff-raff | riffraff, n.1 and adj.
A. n.1
1. a. People of low social class or position; disreputable or undesirable people; members of the rabble considered collectively.
b. With the. The dregs or lowest element of a community, class, etc.
c. A collection of people conceived of as socially inferior or worthless.
d. A person belonging to the rabble. Now rare.
(The adjective form is also listed as rare, with the meaning “”of things: worthless, inferior”.) The earliest cited example for riff raff as a noun is from c1475:
Gregory’s Chron. in J. Gairdner Hist. Coll. Citizen London (1876) 191 Many a man was mortheryde and kylde in that conflycte, I wot not what name hyt for the multytude of ryffe raffe.
This suggests that riff raff has been around for a very long time (definitely before steamboats on the Mississippi). From the OED etymological details, it looks like the noun/adjective riff raff, in various forms (but seemingly never with a final /t/) appeared in Middle English, probably from French.
Here is an extract from the OED with the etymology for riff raff:
Forms: lME–15 ryffe raffe, 15 rif raf, 15 ryff raff, 15 ryf raf, 15–16 rifferaffe, 15–16 riffe-raffe, 15–16 riffe raffe, 15–16rifraff, 15–16 rifraffe, 15–16 rif-raffe, 15–17 riffraffe, 15– riffraff, 15– riff raff, 15– rifraf, 16 rife-rafe, 16 riffe-raff, 16riffe ruffe, 16 riff-raffe, 16 18 rif-raff, 16– riff-raff, 16– rif-raf, 18 riff-raf.
Etymology: Either < Anglo-Norman and Old French, Middle French rifraf, ryfraf altogether, every single one, one and all (14th cent.; of uncertain origin), or shortened < riff and raff adv. Perhaps compare Danish ripsraps collection of heterogeneous things, this and that, sweepings, rabble (early 18th cent)). For further etymology and parallels in Romance and Germanic languages, see riff and raff adv. Compare earlier raff n.3
As you can see, the origins of riff raff are uncertain, but it may have come from an adverbial form initially. The adverbial form (now obsolete) apparently meant something along the lines of “every single bit; every last one”, as in one of the given examples:
?a1400 (1338) R. Mannyng Chron. (Petyt 511) ii. 38 Ten pounde of gold bi ȝere for þe pes þei gaf To Justy & Gudmund; þei tok alle, riffe & raf. (“they took all, riff and raff”)
The adverb form also seems to have come from French (rif et raf), but the OED tells us that it is unclear whether the variant with ‘et’ (and) or the one without was the original form (more on the French etymology here). There are also parallels in other languages, with adverbial riff and raff forms cited for Middle Dutch, Spanish, and Italian. The Middle Dutch example riif ende raf is dated 1444, which is not far off the earliest examples in English. The OED also suggests that the first element riff may ultimately be of Germanic origin, for example as in Old High German riffila sharp-toothed implement (probably ‘saw’ or ‘rake’), or the related verb riffilōn ‘to saw’ (cognates of ripple), and that a reduplicative origin seems plausible (as in mishmash). However, the OED discussion also raises the question as to which element (riff or raff?) should be considered primary, because there are early examples of raff by itself in Germanic languages. It occurred c1330 with the depreciative meaning ” alliteration; verse, esp. alliterative verse, of a crude kind, or in which sound is more prominent than sense; an instance of such verse”, as in:
c1330 Body & Soul (Auch.) 28 For to bere þi word ful wide And maky of þe rime and raf
1842 Tennyson Will Waterproof in Poems (new ed.) II. 185 Let raffs be rife in prose and rhyme.
The OED notes that this use of raff (now obsolete) may have been imitative of the effect of alliterative verse, or may have been a transferred use of the adverbial ‘rif et raf’, which is also apparently found in Middle French with the meaning ‘quickly and carelessly’. There are also plenty of examples of raff on its own but with meanings closer to those for riff raff (as listed above). Here is the earliest use of raff on its own in this way, meaning “a class or group of people (perh. with negative connotations)” (now considered obsolete):
?a1400 (1338) R. Mannyng Chron. (Petyt 511) ii. 136 Tille oþer houses of þe cuntre fiue þousand marke he gaf, Tille heremites & tille seke men & oþer of suilk raf.
Probably my favourite example, with the closely connected meaning “people of the lowest social class considered collectively; disreputable or undesirable people”:
1612 E. Coffin in R. Parsons Discuss. Answere M. William Barlow Pref. sig. b3v, Much he is in whores, in Panders, in strumpets, in hornes, in Asses, and spewing dogs, and other like raffe.
This usage occurs as recently as:
1990 J. Aiken Jane Fairfax vi. 97 The true Irish think nothing of us, we are merely the scaff and raff of the country.
And also as a count noun:
2002 Mail on Sunday (Nexis) 27 Jan. 88 ‘So this is the deal,’ Jonathan and I told the kids. ‘We go and look at the stones and then we stay in a really grand hotel.’ ‘Stones?’ said a worried raff.
All in all, I think it’s safe to say that riff raff did not arise during the time of steamboats on the Mississippi (which began in the early 19th century). Of course, it may have been also been used to refer to poor people on rafts – I don’t know. I can’t find any evidence of it so far. In Mark Twain’s Life on the Mississippi, he uses riff raff (once) but not rift raft; see p.408 here. Clearly, the rift raft form is used by some people today; from the context of many examples it mostly seems to be a misspelling of riff raff, as in here, here and here. Then again, some google hits suggest that there is an actual type of vessel called a rift raft, perhaps a rubber raiding craft used by US Marines, maybe more accurately a drift raft, or another sort of raft, maybe it’s just the “boats that ply the river in the Grand Canyon”. The last link has some interesting discussion, including the suggestion that a rift raft is a counselling device: “Couples who are having problems are placed on it and pushed out into the middle of a lake and not allowed back to shore until they kiss and make up.” (Rift can mean a geological fissure or chasm, like the Grand Canyon, or a rupture/falling-out in a relationship)
To complicate things, there are also vessels out there called ‘Riff Rafts’. Someone has built a two-man pontoon with this name. A performance troupe/film crew called the Unseen Ghost Brigade also built their own Riff Raft; they travelled along the Mississippi, stopping to perform, while making a documentary. Given their musical bent, ‘Riff Raft’ makes sense (riff being a melodic phrase/short series of chords in a musical piece).
The interesting thing is, though, that at the same time as we have this rift raft variant of riff raff, we also have instances of the word rift occurring in the form riff, with final /t/ deletion (which is maybe the case in the name of the two-man pontoon). Some examples are given over here at the eggcorn database; here is one:
It’s just possible that the riff between Snape and Sirius started out as a “boy’s will be boy’s” scenario until Sirius sent Snape in after Remus and then it turned into a real hatred. (Harry Potter Fan Zone forum, Apr 17, 2005)
So there is a whole lot of variation going on here, for the words rift and riff raff, that I didn’t know about until now. I also didn’t know that riff raff can be used to refer to rubbish or miscellaneous odds and ends, rather than just people – I haven’t discussed it here, but it’s pretty well attested (and the rift raft variant occurs with this meaning too).
If anyone has a good definition of what an actual rift raft is (as a river or sea vessel), i’d love to know!
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