Ringer

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ringer is a term with several meanings:

• In colloquial English language, it refers to a superior contestant or specialist who is clandestinely brought into an event or team to bolster its capabilities. In horse or greyhound racing, a ringer is a fast animal pretending to be another, with poorer or no 'form', in the expectation that bookmakers will offer better odds than if they knew its real abilities. The original M*A*S*H movie included a plot in which the character, Capt. Oliver Harmon 'Spearchucker' Jones played by Fred Williamson, a former professional American football player, is used as a secret weapon. He is described several times as the 'ringer' and his presence is concealed until late in the game in order to secure good odds in a bet.
• The Ringer is a 2005 comedy film starring Johnny Knoxville and Katherine Heigl.
• A "ringer" can refer to the mechanism in a telephone that announces an incoming call.
• A "ringer" can mean a traded briefcase or package in which the recipient is expecting to find drugs, money, documents, or other important items based on a pre-existing arrangement, but in fact contains worthless materials designed to mimic the shape and weight of the original objects.
• An ornithologist trained in bird ringing is called a ringer.
• Sydney Ringer, a British clinician and pharmacologist, best known for inventing Lactated Ringer's solution
• In Australian English vernacular and folklore, the speed-shearer in the wool shed is the ringer. (See the Australian song, 'Click go the Shears'.)
• In Tolkien fandom, a Ringer is a fan of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and other fantasy writings and particularly Peter Jackson's 2001-2003 film adaptations of the said work. There is a documentary on this subject entitled Ringers: Lord of the Fans. However, the term is not universally used in the fandom.
• In Role playing games, a ringer is a player character who is a direct or near-direct copy of a character from a work of popular fiction (derived from "dead ringer").
• In the game of horseshoe pitching, a ringer is a shoe that encircles the stake and is counted as 3 points.
• A ringer T-shirt is a style of T-shirt with a different color of fabric around the neck and sleeves.
• A ringer is a type of crane mounted on a large ring, usually of very high capacity.
• A ringer is a stolen car whose vehicle identification number plate has been replaced from a car of the same type which had been written off in a car accident.
• Ringer, a Marvel Comics villain

[edit] See also

• Dead ringer