Tag Archives: red herring

29 May

ringer

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.

17 Jun

red herring

Who taught : Alex and Sangeetha

That's what I am (source: http://www.imdb.com)

Have you seen this movie, that’s what I am? A few days ago, Jessy and I watched it and I personally like it. In the movie, there are a few slangs and one of them is ginger. There is a student who is called the Big G by other students in the movie, basically in the context of bullying. So sad to see it happening just because of his hair color. And, later in the movie, he mentioned a word, tolerance. He said, “I like this word because of its definition.” Here is the definition he used in the movie.

sympathy or indulgence for beliefs or practices differing from or conflicting with one’s own

As I hear this definition, I thought about it. How much do we judge other people every time and every day? And, the worst thing is that we judge other people by their looks or behaviors without even really knowing them. Why can we have sympathy or indulgence to each other? It is just something I would like to suggest you to think about today.

OK… so two days ago, Alex and Sangeetha visited my place and we had dinner and watched a movie. It was fun. As always, I also learned a few new expressions. Let me tell you one of them that I think it is very interesting! It is “red herring.”

Here, herring is a kind of fish that is blue. Now, why there is “red”  in the expression. If you salt or smoke herring, its color is changed to be red from blue.

Knowing that, would you be able to feel what it means? There is no way you can feel it unless you really know the meaning of it. Here is the meaning of the expression. Oh.. actually… before I talk about it, let me give you a perfect situation that you can use this expression. Whenever you watch a thriller or read a mystery fiction, the story always leads you to believe that one character must be a criminal or killer but, in the end, you find out that the other character that you never thought about suddenly becomes the killer. Now, who is the red herring here? The first character you believed to be a killer is the red herring. OK. now, here is the definition for you.

diverting attention away from an item of significance.

Alex said something to Sangeetha and Sangeetha sort of disagreed to what he said. As she tried to argue about it, she said something that is not really connected to what Alex said. So, at that moment, Alex said to Sangeetha, “Now, that is a red herring.”

When Alex told me that story, my feeling about the expression was that it must be from fishermen’s sayings. Well, I was not even close. The etymology of this expression is very interesting. Let me give you the best link you can visit to find it out.

Next time you watch a thriller with your friends, why don’t you try to find out who in the movie is the red herring? It will be fun.