# What's a Ringer **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 9, 2002, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-ringer/131457 "2002-10-09T01:10:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![hawthorne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@hawthorne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hawthorne)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2002, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-ringer/131457/21 "2002-10-10T15:11:57Z")
So in the traditional Australian song _Click Go the Shears_ in the part where > [@](#): > > The ringer looks around and is beaten by a blow/ > And curses the old snagger with the bare-bellied yoe\* it is the old snagger, not the ringer who may be the ringer in the American sense. \*[sub]Translation: the pace-setting shearer is beaten by the cunning of the old shearer who has chosen a sheep with little wool on its underside and thus just finished shearing first despite inferior speed.[/sub] ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2002, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-ringer/131457/22 "2002-10-11T02:02:25Z")
**Urban Ranger** You have to be careful when using that dictionary site. It only provides the first appearance of the word “ringer” which was a bell ringer. It wasn’t referring to the meaning of the word as we are chasing it here. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2002, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-ringer/131457/23 "2002-10-11T02:18:39Z")
**Sublight** The use of “dead” as an intensifier was quite well documented early onwith other words. So its use in “dead ringer” wouldn’t likely have meaning in the “thud/dead” lead coin sense. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-ringer/131457.md?page=1)