Myth-informed (was Re: [TheForge] Good ole days ?

[Dave Brown]

At 00:09 02/18/01 +1030, you wrote:
>Yeah but surely the last one cant be true??? burying 4% of "dead" people
>alive???? Bizzare if it is.

I did a relatively quick search of the web for "dead ringer origin".  It 
seems like Shannell's schepticism is well placed.  The following is a 
representative sample of what I found:

Q.:  Okay - where does the phrase "dead ringer" come from? It has two 
different entries from what I have found.  One having to do with 
Quasimoto's brother and the other related to how someone was buried.  - 
Kendra W.

A.:  Both of the stories you've heard are wrong.  And to be honest with 
you, I can't even track down the one about the Hunchback's brother, so that 
should tell you how way off that one is.

The word "ringer" dates back to 1890 and was originally horse-racing slang 
for a horse with a proven track record that was knowingly substituted for a 
less qualified, untested horse. "Ringer" is now used as slang for anything 
that has been tampered with or unfairly altered. The "dead" in "dead 
ringer" is simply an intensifier, meaning "absolutely," and since a 
"ringer" must resemble the thing it replaces, "dead ringer" has come to 
mean something indistinguishable from another thing or person.

  -- from Mindless Crap at 
http://www.mindlesscrap.com/origins/moreorigins.htm which also has lots of 
other mindless crap of interest.  But who knows?  All this "mindless crap" 
may just what it's name implies.

Dave B.