ringer
Who taught : Al
How was your weekend? It was a little longer weekend here in the U.S. because yesterday was Memorial Day. It is a federal holiday to remember the men and women who died while serving the country in the Armed Forces. Every year, I go to a church retreat during this holiday weekend. It was fun. This year, I sort of participated in the corn-hole tournament (FYI, if you do not know what corn-hole is, look at this post. Especially, read the comments through. π ). It was fun but it was also my first time to play the tournament. So, Bovi and I, as a team, were defeated in the semi-final. Not bad, huh?
After the tournament was done, I was having breakfast with Al and other friends. And, Al said, “So, Terry, I heard that you are pretty good at corn-hole. You were like a ringer yesterday night.”
Everything was fine for me to understand till I heard this word, ringer. What is it? I did not carry any ring and made sounds while playing corn-hole games.
Can you guess what it means? Here is a little more details about what happened for your guess! So, before a game started, I told people that I had not played for a very long time and I must be bad at it now. But, I won games to get to the semi-final.
Here is a great definition from Free Dictionary.
a contestant, esp a horse, entered in a competition under false representations of identity, record, or ability.
Well, I guess I did say things to falsely represent myself. The funny thing is that it sounds like a word that is not good to use often but it is not really a bad thing to say. Most of the times, when you play a sport with your friends and they might invite someone else and they say, “Hey I am not good. But I will try.” And, when the game is actually on, he or she just dominates it. They are ringers. I have seen some people like that when I play golf.
Also, there was another expression I heard during the retreat, red herring. At that time, that sounded totally new to me but I suddenly realized that it is one of the expressions I have already learned and I was correct. Look at this post to check it out. I won’t forget red herring.