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joey
Where did the saying "dead ringer" come from?
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Quote Answer:
Imagine yourself at a funeral hundreds of years ago, and as they brought the coffin in noises started coming from it, believe it or not, this must have happened on the odd occasion, and frightened every body half to death!
The obvious explanation for this was that they were coming out of a coma and when first placed in the coffin appeared dead.
The morticians came up with an ingenious solution in case they accidentally buried somebody alive, they got a length of string and attached one end to the little finger of the corpse and the other end to a bell, so if they was alive the bell would ring, hence the term 'dead ringer,' so if any body was seen that looked like some one who had died, he was said to be a dead ringer, as in he is a dead ringer of him.
Incidentally a guy would be on listen out for bells in the grave yard at night and that's how the term 'graveyard shift' came about and also 'saved by the bell' possibly.
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Traveler
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Traveler, I think this answer is far fetched, surely they did not tie strings to peoples fingers in their coffins. I think the term 'dead ringer' possibly comes from the bubonic plague period. The cry "Bring out your dead!" apparently signified the passing of certain carts during the plague years, and was probably accompanied by a bell ringer, the cart would remove the diseased deceased to mass graves. A quick and efficient disposal of human remains was paramount to the public health in those dark days and I think this explanation to be more feasible.
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CyberMan, I have to agree with you on this one, hands up I got it wrong!
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You are both wrong! A "ringer" comes from horse racing and denotes a horse which looks like another horse but is a much better runner. The "dead" has nothing to do with not being alive, but rather is used in the sense of "exact" as in "dead shot" or "dead on".
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Quote Reply:
You are both wrong! A "ringer" comes from horse racing and denotes a horse which looks like another horse but is a much better runner. The "dead" has nothing to do with not being alive, but rather is used in the sense of "exact" as in "dead shot" or "dead on".
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Mr Mike Dixon
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I think Mike is right here but just wondering why is an horse that looks like another horse called a ringer?
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The verb "ring" has long been used in criminal circles (but not, it seems, in American English) to mean exchange or substitute.
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How did the word ring become to be known as exchange or substitute?
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Quote Reply:
You are both wrong! A "ringer" comes from horse racing and denotes a horse which looks like another horse but is a much better runner. The "dead" has nothing to do with not being alive, but rather is used in the sense of "exact" as in "dead shot" or "dead on".
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Mr Mike Dixon
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Mike's right - dead right
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