Thomas Pynchon was a student at Stanford, who studied under Vladimir Nabokov. Nobokov was fond of this word, and I cannot help thinking that Pynchon must have pynched it from one of Nobokov's novels.
 
Rigmarole
A lengthy and complicated procedure.
In medieval times, there was a game called 'ragman'. It used a rolled-up scroll containing descriptions of characters, each with a string attached. Players selected a string at random, the scroll was then unrolled and the associated passage read out, to the great hilarity of all present (those were simpler times).
The origin of the name for the game is obscure: the oldest form was 'rageman', said as three syllables, and this suggests it may have been French in origin. Others think it might have come from 'rag' in the sense of tatters, used as a name for a devil (as in 'ragamuffin', originally a demon).
The name was transferred to various English statutes at the end of the thirteenth century, which were written on scrolls. With the seals and ribbons of their signers sticking out, these reminded people of the scroll used in the game.
It seems the terms 'ragman' and 'ragman roll' passed into the language as a description of a long and rambling discourse, no doubt from the disconnected nature of documents like the rolls of allegiance. It later seems to have fallen out of use; it reappeared in the eighteenth century in various spellings, such as 'riggmon-rowle', but it eventually settled down as 'rigmarole', and in the process losing any clear connection with the older term.

Codswallop
Nonsense.
This mainly British colloquial expression is recorded only from the 1960s, but is certainly older. Its origin is uncertain. Some argue it may be from 'cods', a nineteenth-century term for the testes.
It is also suggested that 'wallop' may be connected with the dialect term meaning to chatter or scold (not with the word meaning a heavy blow).
One explanation has it that it refers to the late Hiram Codd, who - despite his archetypal American first name - was British, born in Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk in 1838. He spent his life working in the soft drinks business. In the 1870s, he designed and patented a method of sealing a glass bottle by means of a ball in its neck, which the pressure of the gas in the fizzy drink forced against a rubber washer. Making the bottle was a technical challenge, since the ball necessarily had to be larger than the diameter of the neck. It was only in 1876, when he teamed up with a Yorkshire glass blower named Ben Rylands, that the answer was found. The Codd bottle was an immediate success; surviving examples are now highly collectable. You opened them by pushing the ball into the neck, and openers in the shape of short, thin cylinders were supplied for the purpose. One unexpected problem was that children smashed the bottles to use the glass balls as marbles.
The suggestion is that drinkers who preferred their tipple to have alcohol in it were dismissive of  Mr Codd's soft drinks. As beer was often called 'wallop', they referred sneeringly to the fizzy drink as 'Codd's wallop', and the resulting word later spread it’s meaning to refer to anything considered to be rubbish.

Dutch Uncle/Treat
Dutch readers should perhaps look away...
In the seventeenth century, the Dutch and British were enemies. Both wanted maritime superiority for economic reasons, especially control of the sea routes from the rich spice islands of the East Indies. The two countries fought three wars at sea between the years 1652 and 1674. At the lowest point of the struggle, in May 1667, the Dutch sailed up the Medway, sank a lot of ships, and blockaded the Thames. The Dutch were powerful, they were the enemy, and their name was taken in vain at every opportunity.
The stereotype of the Dutchman among the English at this period was somebody stolid, miserly, and bad-tempered, and these associations, especially the stinginess, were linked to several phrases. Only a small number of them are actually recorded in print from the time of the Dutch wars, most being of eighteenth century provenance or later. But there's nothing so long lasting as traditional enmity, as later phrases borrowed the ideas from earlier ones.
Examples from the time of the Dutch wars include 'Dutch reckoning', a bill that is presented without any details, and which only gets bigger if you question it, and a 'Dutch widow', a prostitute. In the same spirit, but recorded later, are 'Dutch auction', one in which the prices go down instead of up; 'Dutch courage', temporary bravery induced by alcohol; 'Dutch metal', an alloy of copper and zinc used as a substitute for gold foil; 'Dutch comfort' or 'Dutch consolation', in which somebody might say "thank God it is no worse!"; 'Dutch concert', in which each musician plays a different tune; 'Dutch uncle', someone who criticises or rebukes you with the frankness of a relative; and 'Dutch treat', one in which those invited pay for themselves (this last one first appeared only in the twentieth century, but it continues the associations). Some are now so embedded in the language that direct associations with the Dutch or the Netherlands have largely been lost - Dutch uncle, for example. 

A young nun enters an order that operates a strict vow of silence. She is told that the vow can only be broken once every three years, and then only by the use of two words. So, after the first three years, the girl goes to the Mother Superior and says: 'Uncomfortable beds'. The Mother Superior replies, 'Right, my child, you have had your say and now must return to your duties.'
Three more years pass and again the nun has the opportunity to say two words to the Mother Superior.
'Bad food,' she says. 'Right,' says the Mother Superior, 'you may return to your work.'
Another three years pass and the no-longer young nun returns again to the Mother Superior and announces - in more than two words - 'I wish to go home.'
'Thank goodness,' replies the Mother Superior, 'you've done nothing but complain since you got here...'

That's an old favourite :)

On a royal visit to New Zealand, the Queen and her husband were watching a demonstration of sheep shearing. Prince Philip, as always, had to ask a number of questions and do a lot of pointing. To the sheepshearer he said, 'How long will it take you to finish off these sheep?'
Replied the sheepshearer, 'About half a bloody hour, I reckon.'
'Come, come,' said Prince Philip, conscious of the Queen's regal presence, 'that's putting it a bit strong, isn't it?'
'Oh, all right then,' said the sheepshearer, 'say forty bloody minutes.'

A woman student at Bangor University was being courted by a man who was studying at Sheffield University. During term time, he frequently drove the two hundred miles or so to see her. Eventually they were married, and the girl's father, making the traditional speech at the wedding, proclaimed:
'It must have been true love considering he drove two hundred miles to Bangor every weekend...'

After producing the play The Faithful Shepherdess by John Fletcher (1579- 1625), Sir Thomas Beecham received a letter from the Inland Revenue seeking information of regarding Fletcher's whereabouts for the purposes of taxation. 'I was able to reply that to the best of my knowledge his present residence was the South Aisle of Southwark Cathedral, and I went on to venture the opinion that he might find some difficulty in changing it'. 

All he asked for was a fireside chair and a couple of good boobs. (Cape Times)

Daventry Development Committee are looking for two pretty girls to show off their expansion regions. (Northampton Chronicle and Echo)

The computer class for nudists, 50-strong, consists of housewives, teachers, doctors, engineers and office workers. Dr. R.J. Gibson, club secretary, explained that it is being started partly because the weather is not always suitable for badminton. (Sunday Citizen)

Owing to a transcription error, an article in Saturday’s Independent on page 9 on Irish premier Charles Haughey mistakenly read “ A man of immense rudeness”. This was intended to read “A man of great shrewdness”. (Independent)

MAGGIE SOLD! An autographed photo of Margaret Thatcher fetched £1.60 at a school auction sale in Oyne, Aberdeenshire. A box of haddock raised £8. (Sunday Mail)

Redbridge Borough Council is to prosecute a school in its district after its kitchens were found to be overrun with cockroaches. The Council decided to take action when the cockroaches were still found in the kitchens three weeks after they had received a warning. (Grauniad)

 "No, not quite naked.  I shall have my uniform on."
 
 Frederick William I, King of Prussia and father of Frederick the Great, is best remembered for turning Prussia in a powerful state with a large, modern standing army.  On his deathbed, the priest who came to console the king was reading to him from the Book of Job.  "Naked came I out of my mother's womb and naked shall I return thither", read the priest.  "No, not quite naked.  I shall have my uniform on", replied the king with his last breath.

Allen, Ethan (1738-1789)

 "Waiting are they?  Waiting are they?  Well--let 'em wait".
 Ethan Allen was a U.S. patriot and leader of the Green Mountain Boys during the American Revolution.  Allen's last words were a deathbed response to an attending doctor who attempted to comfort him by saying, "General, I fear the angels are waiting for you".

From a gravestone in Wolverhampton, England, 1690.

From a gravestone in Thurmont, U.S.A.

Prof. S.B. McCracken, Elkhart, Indiana

Saffron - October 2001