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I received a forwarded e-mail with the following content...
England is old and small and the local folks started running out of places to bury people So they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to a bone-house, and reuse the grave. When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive. So they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night (the graveyard shift.) to listen for the bell; thus,someone could be, saved by the bell or was considered a dead ringer...
if someone could find a source for this it would be great to add to to the page.
65.92.244.107 18:46, 5 August 2009 (UTC)Reply
- I'm more inclined to trust http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=ringer than this story - the meaning of "dead ringer" implied by the story is very different from the meaning of the word as we know it. Conrad.Irwin 01:09, 5 November 2009 (UTC)Reply