Who taught : Al

Ringer (source: http://www.life123.com/)

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. ). 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.