Where does the phrase dead ringer come from?
does anyone know where the phrase dead ringer come from?
cheers
moonmagic Tue 10/06/08 22:04
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Our friends at Phrase Finder have this to say:
"A ringer is a horse substituted for another of similar appearance in order to defraud the bookies. This word originated in the US horse-racing fraternity at the end of the 19th century. The word is defined for us in a copy of the Manitoba Free Press from October 1882:
"A horse that is taken through the country and trotted under a false name and pedigree is called a 'ringer.'"
Further,
"...So, that's ringer; what about dead? Dead, in the sense of lifeless, is so commonly used that we tend to ignore its other meanings. The meaning that's relevant here is exact or precise. This is demonstrated in many phrases; 'dead shot', 'dead centre', 'dead heat', etc.
So, 'dead ringer' is literally the same as 'exact duplicate'. It first came into use soon after the word ringer itself, in the US at the end of the 19th century. The earliest reference I can find that confirms the 'exact duplicate' meaning is from the Oshkosh Weekly Times, June 1888, in a court report of a man charged with being 'very (or dead drunk': ..."
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Dead for 'absolute, complete,entire,thorough, downright; unerring, certain, sure; exact' dates from the late C16 [Oxford English Dictionary] but the dictionary says no more of the derivation than that 'ringer' is of US origin.
Why ringer? Because a criminal ring does it? Because the horse is made to 'ring true' (from bell making: seem right, sound correct ) when it should ring false? Who knows ?
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Years ago, when it was not always possible to confirm for sure that someone was actually dead before they were buried, loved ones would sometimes bury the 'corpse' with a string in its hand, attached to a bell, so that in the event of waking up the unfortunate victim had a means of letting the outside world know that they were in fact, not dead.
It may be possible that the word 'deadringer' could have been used by people recognising the face of, and describing an encounter with one of those lucky people who came back from the grave.
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It is a horse substituted for a better horse, to make a gambling coup. It would mean an exact copy of the original. In the midlands, some still say "he is deadlike his brother", or "its a dead copy", meaning exact copy. In racing to ring a horse, was sland for substitute, so one such was a "ringer".
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from victorian times when they were freaked and tby cases of peopel being buried alive , they inserted a bell to a coffin and some rope , so if the dead person was alive int he coffin he would ring it
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