Ragman Rolls for legal instruments both in England and Scotland will be found in the preface to the Bannatyne Clubs volume, and in Jamiesons Scottish Dictionary, s.v. Ragman. Brewer's "Dictionary of Phrase and Fable" defines "Ragman Roll" as follows: The name ragman roll survives in the colloquial rigmarole, a rambling, incoherent statement. Merriam Webster gives a very different account of the origin rigmarole and the term "Ragman Roll". The name of Ragman has been sometimes confined to the record of 1296. There is an account of this given in Calendar of Documents relating to Scotland preserved in the Public Record Office, London.
Origins of rock and roll argued that because rock and roll was "an evolutionary process", it would be foolish to name any single record as the first. Writer Nick Tosches similarly felt that, "It is impossible to discern the first modern rock record, just as it is impossible to discern where blue becomes indigo in the spectrum." Music writer Rob Bowman remarked that the long-debated question is useless and cannot be answered because "criteria vary depending upon who is making the selection." Origins of rock and roll Rock and roll emerged as a defined musical style in the United States in the early to mid-1950s.