ringer = reminder?

Forums: English, Esl, Grammar
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It didn’t happen that way, because the group never quite
broke up. We found that we liked playing together too much
to quit, and with a couple of “ringer” musicians on sax and
drums (plus, in the early days, our musical guru, Al Kooper, at
the heart of the group), we sounded pretty good. You’d pay to
hear us. Not a lot, not U2 or E Street Band prices, but maybe
what the oldtimers call “roadhouse money.” We took the
group on tour, wrote a book about it (my wife took the pho-

More:

http://www.librosgratisweb.com/pdf/king-stephen/on-writing.pdf

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No, ringer means someone brought in from outside. This is not quite the usual manner in which it is used, however. Usually, a ringer is someone of greater skill than is normally assumed, and it is used in the context of a sport. So, for example, if a local soccer club brought in someone unknown to their opponents, but someone of great skill who had once been a professional player, that player would be called a ringer. The usual sense then is of someone who is brought in in an attempt to gain an unfair advantage.

In this case, they just mean people brought in from outside.

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

No, ringer means someone brought in from outside. This is not quite the usual manner in which it is used, however. Usually, a ringer is someone of greater skill than is normally assumed, and it is used in the context of a sport. So, for example, if a local soccer club brought in someone unknown to their opponents, but someone of great skill who had once been a professional player, that player would be called a ringer. The usual sense then is of someone who is brought in in an attempt to gain an unfair advantage.

In this case, they just mean people brought in from outside.

Good usage.

Thanks.

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ringer = reminder?

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