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Origin of Phrases - R
Read The Riot Act
Meaning: To complain or lecture loudly and with angry emotion.
Example: Upset about his neighbors load music at 3:00 am, Davis knocked on the door and proceeded to read the riot act.
Origin: This saying, meant to scold and warn people for breaking the rules, refers to the real Riot Act as decreed by England's King George I in 1716, whereby an actual statement was supposed to have been read to groups of disobedient people.
To quote the law: "The act makes it the duty of a justice, sheriff, mayor, or other authority, wherever twelve persons or more are unlawfully, riotously and tumultuously assembled together, to the disturbance of the public peace, to resort to the place of such assembly and read the following proclamation: 'Our Sovereign Lord the King chargeth and commandeth all persons being assembled immediately to disperse themselves, and peacefully depart to their habitations or to their lawful business, upon the pains contained in the act made in the first year of King George for preventing tumultuous and riotous assemblies. God save the King.'"