'Dead' man shocks family by asking for a drink

The Sunday Times ^ | January 26, 2003 | Bruce Johnston

[Howie]

[[[[dead ringer;Meaning An exact duplicate. Origin A ringer is a horse substituted for another to defraud the bookies. Dead here means exact rather than lifeless. The Victorian practise of fitting wires and bells into coffins to allow people who were buried alive to call for rescue is unrelated. Such devices certainly did exist but weren't the source of the phrase. ]]]]

Found this at www.phrasefinder.co.uk

[Blood of Tyrants]

It comes from an old superstition that if the body wasn't guarded, a spirit walking the earth or a demon might sneak in the body before it was buried.

[TheLion]

Guess they missed those two little holes in his neck!

[Oschisms]

Yeah, the site I went to for the chorus called it "a barrel of whiskey"- which is a perfectly acceptable alternative given an American audience.

My Irish relatives refer to a pint bottle of whiskey as a "naggin."

I always wondered what "cray-thur" was until I read The Sheik and the Dustbin, by George MacDonald Frasier. The Scottish soldiers referred to whiskey as "The Creature."

[razorback-bert]

Specifically: (a) (Ch. of Eng.) An annual parish festival formerly held in commemoration of the dedication of a church. Originally, prayers were said on the evening preceding, and hymns were sung during the night, in the church; subsequently, these vigils were discontinued, and the day itself, often with succeeding days, was occupied in rural pastimes and exercises, attended by eating and drinking, often to excess. "Great solemnities were made in all churches, and great fairs and wakes throughout all England." Ld. Berners. "And every village smokes at wakes with lusty cheer." Drayton. (b) The sitting up of persons with a dead body, often attended with a degree of festivity, chiefly among the Irish. "Blithe as shepherd at a wake." Cowper.

[weikel]

He was justing pining for the fjords.

[weikel]

Damn you to hell LOL. You said that before me grrrr.

[Barnacle]

I know what I'd ask for.

[dighton]

Antoine Wiertz, The Premature Burial.

[Thinkin' Gal]

Roberto De Simone, from Palermo, was rushed back to the Vincenzo Cervello hospital in the Sicilian capital, where 12 hours earlier doctors said he had died.

You'd think he would have learned a lesson from that first visit.

[tallhappy]

Did ye drink me doornail?

[buffyt]

I saw a movie, I think it is from Edgar Allen Poe story, called PREMATURE BURIAL. The entire family suffered from some kind of syndrome that made them appear dead. They were buried. Later they found out that many of them had been buried alive. I have always lived with a fear of being buried alive. I want to be cremated when I die. And since I am in the latter years of my life I should put it into writing! I used to date a guy whose dad owned a funeral home and it wasn't all that uncommon for some elderly "dead" person to sit up. Must have really low pulse, etc. to fool the doctors and family. Almost like hybernation rate.

[buffyt]

I agree with you about death and brain death. When my aunt was lying in bed in a nursing home last January, we all sang happy birthday to her. Her two sisters and her three nieces all sang to her together. Her hand started shaking vigorously. I think she could hear us! She was supposedly brain dead. But they didn't do anything to hasten her death. They waited until her heart stopped beating, etc. It was hard to see her that way. I have her photo on my living room table, next to photos of her sisters who sang with me last year. I also have a ceramic rose Capidimonte piece that was hers, sitting by her photo. She was like a second mother to me.

[DaughterOfAnIwoJimaVet]

For some reason, I was reminded of you when I read this. : ) ("Huh? Wha??? WHERE AM I???")

[July 4th]

I can just picture some Italian doctor saying, "Well, he isn't dead, but we can't help him here. Just take him home, see what happens. I'm late for my afternoon nap."

[Experiment 6-2-6]

He was only "mostly dead"...

[Atchafalaya]

I guess they need to find out what the brain is and what it does before they call it dead. They must have mistaken it for his long dead one eyed wonder worm.

[fnord]

rofl!

[Terry Mross]

Not sure about the origin of dead ringer but the person who sat by the grave all night was known to be working the "graveyard shift."

[Chad Fairbanks]

I think Dead Ringer comes from this:

The definition of ringer, from which this phrase comes, is "substituted racehorse."

Unscrupulous racehorse owners have a fast horse and a slow horse that are nearly identical in appearance. They run the slow horse until the betting odds reached the desired level, then they substitute the ringer, who can run much faster. Dead, in this case means abrupt or exact, like in dead stop, or dead shot.

No reliable source is available, however. :0)