“Our sovereign Lord the King chargeth and commandeth all persons, being assembled, immediately to disperse themselves, and peaceably to 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 tumults and riotous assemblies. God save the King.”
And so, back in the day, the police did read this or a portion of this to protestors before arresting those who refused to leave the scene.
Anyways, reading the riot act later became a generally accepted idiom for giving someone a strong warning – before further actions are taken against them as punishment.
And since nobody’s actually reading the Riot Act any more, riot act (small letters) will do today.
Here are a few relatively recent examples of people reading others the riot act or having the riot act read to them:
1. Red Bull need to read the riot act to their simmering Formula One drivers even as they lick self-inflicted wounds from a Turkish Grand Prix nightmare.
If they let a feud fester between Australian Mark Webber and German Sebastian Vettel, it will play straight into the hands of rivals McLaren -- who know a thing or two about bad blood between team mates but are currently basking in unity.
Three years ago, Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso were barely on speaking terms at McLaren and, after shooting themselves in the foot in Hungary, ended up losing both championships to Ferrari.
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