Ask Mike: Saved by the bell
Hey Guys,
A wise person once told me to avoid clichés like the plague. The origin of these overly used phrases is a popular topic within Yahoo! Answers. Today, I tried to get to the bottom of one of our most overly used and misunderstood clichés: saved by the bell.
I always assumed this one originated with boxing. A pugilist was knocked to the ground, but because the round-ending bell rang before he was counted out by the ref, the downed boxer was not defeated. Hence, he was saved by the bell. Sounds right, but that may not be where the phrase originally came from.
Phrases.org, one of my favorite sites, explains that there is another, very popular theory regarding the origin of the phrase. Some experts believe that the phrase originated not in the boxing ring, but in the cemetery. “There is a widespread notion that the phrase is from the 17th century and that it describes people being saved from being buried alive by using a coffin with a bell attached.”
Wait, what? People being buried alive? Yeah, well, apparently the science of identifying dead bodies wasn’t as advanced back then. People entered comas and were believed to be dead, but weren’t. Fortunately, people knew that sometimes “mistakes are made,” so they buried the dead with a bell. If it turned out that the departed wasn’t really dead, he or she would then ring the bell, and hopefully, somebody would dig them up. “Hopefully” being the key word.
But not everybody agrees with this theory. Snopes.com, another wonderful site, writes that the phrase has nothing to do with the prematurely buried asking for a second chance. The columnist insists the phrase started with boxing. All the stuff about bells and cemeteries is just a Web rumor.
What do you guys think? Do you have a definitive answer to the origin of “saved by the bell”? Feel free to make your case in the comments below and please include a supporting link or two. Looking forward to checking ‘em all out. And please, no Zack Morris jokes.
Thanks for reading,
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The theory about the dead being buried alive is true! I’m taking a Death & Dying class right now and we just talked about it. There would be a watchman and his job was solely to “listen for the sound of bells” and if he did, he had to hurry up and dig them up. This was practiced after grave robbers unearthed a grave to find a man in his casket with bloody hands and scratch marks on the inside casket!
Ok I am not alone. For years I have been annoyed with people using cliches and I whine about it and people just stare in confusion.
Alas we are stuck with them and not all are bad but it shows that we are all lemmings perhaps. [ Is that a cliche - lemmings?]
To broaden the topic, isn’t all language just merely an expansion of cliches? Isn’t cliches just overused phrases? Isn’t language just repeating what others say?
Watzup wid dat? WORD!
Gid tit? she it. Gimme an icon
I’m a white irish American.
Save by the bell means when the teacher make a question or ask for a homework and the bell sound so the student will have time to study before answer.
All I know is that I read about the cemetery theory in a book, not on the internet. In the book it said something more like string was tied to the “dead” persons finger, and the other end was tied to a bell hung on a nearby tree. Then someone was given the “Graveyard Shift” of sitting in the cemetery to listen for bells.
I never heard of the boxing ring theory until now.
Honestly, I believe the cemetery version was where the saying originally came from, and its use with boxing is a later devopment of the saying.
I always thought it meant being saved by the school bell…
I can tell you that Edgar Allen Poe worried about live burial. Many of his stories concern being buried alive, but I don’t recall any bells.
Mark Twain wrote about the custom of keeping corpses until they were clearly dead, and about using bells. I don’t think he ever used the term “saved by the bell.”
I have heard that term used non-metahoriclly by boxing announcers. In some states today, however, the knock-out count continues even after the ringing of the bell. This is supposed to be (for all I know, maybe it is) a safety precaution.
Wouldn’t it be terrible to be saved from knock-out countdown by the bell, only to drop dead of qn aggravated concussion a few hours later?
I’ve heard of both origins. Hmmmm…….
I was under the impression that they began using the bell for said reasons, after there had been a major flood in a London cemetary. When the graves had been unearthed, there were quite a few coffins with scratch marks inside them. I’ve seen a flooded grave while I was living near the Gulf of Mexico. The coffins to tend to rise towards the surface. And, at the time this was happening there were a lot of reasons a person could appear dead and not actually be. Lead poisinging from plates and bowels, in addition to other common household items that were made out of materials we now consider poisionous. It wasn’t uncommon for a person to be declared dead and actually be in a coma or simply unconscious. This is also why they brought about the Wake. People near and dear to the deceased would sit and wait for their loved ones to “wake”. You really can tell a lot about a culture by how they tread their dead.
We just learned about that in English class during our medieval studies! As some people mentioned above, bells were used to insure that people who were buried were really dead. When someone died, they would tie a string onto the dead person’s index finger. The string would lead to a wooden stake near the headstone ( I believe ).
Since the graveyard had to be watched, or listened to, 24-7, they did come up with the whole “graveyard shift” thing.
When the “dead” person did ring the bell, the were called a “dead-ringer”!
If you look up on the internet, somewhere it should have a lot of the common phrases that come from medieval times. I found it quite interesting accually!!
Two good websites are http://members.tripod.com/~hkcarms/phrases.html
and http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~genepool/sayings.htm
Just because the whole cemetery/coffin bell thing is true doesn’t mean that’s the origin of the phrase. Better linguists would search for early references to the cliche in literature and writings and try to track down it’s origin, but if I had to guess (and since it usually has to do with time) I’d guess it’s the boxing origin.
neither is right. It has much older origin. When people started building churches, they
equipped them with bells. So the churches were used as means of communication. When enemy approached or there was a fire or some other natural disaster, the bell toiled. People, saved from the fire by the means of church bells, or who ran away/hid in the fortified cities from an army, or were worn about plague – they were SAVED BY THE BELL.
Like you, am fascinated by origin of popular sayings, and have written about them in my Dictionary for the Tourism Industry (ISBN 978-1-84593-499-1).
Working as a Tour Manager, explaining why we say ‘Bless you’ after a sneeze, or talk of ‘sixes and sevens’ used to be most popular items in commentaries.
Verite R
Sam Goldwyn the great Film Magnate once threw down a script he’s just read saying ” No good. Full of Cliches. Why can’t you write some NEW Cliches?”
I like ‘em actually…..
About the dead being buried alive with a bell in the coffin, I knew about that thanks to this TV Sitcom, Supernatural, where they had an episode that tells about the dead being buried alive and having a bell in the coffin.
This is an excellent place to ask, as we were all alive when this cliche started being used. I can tell you for sure that it is more to do with the inventor of the telephone. Saved by the bell refers to the invention of telephones, thus saving many lives.
YUSSSSSSS “you gained a level in sarcasm, you are now level 99″
Yes, historically coffins were indeed equiped with bells, this i know. I’m not sure if that’s where the phrase came from though.
As i remember, this was one of the reasons that there were night watchmen on the cemetary grounds? Not sure… that might not be legit…
But more interestingly, did you know that today some coffins are STILL equiped with alarms? You can actually buy special coffins that have an alarm included (for those people who have a phobia of being buried alive). I dont know the details, but i know that they still exist.
“avoid clichés like the plague”
i see what you did there
To me and my school it means that the teacher is about to give a quiz or something but then the bell rings so we’re “saved by the bell” (well, for the day =P)
Yes it is from the cemetery version, since medical science didn’t have a way to check brain waves, etc… (Since when does Snopes know Everything?)
Cliches may be trite for college term papers, and other publications, but in conversation and casual writing, or humorous columns it serves a purpose. Language has a rich layered history, and people find the quickest and sometimes most colorful way to communicate. Jargon, IM chatter, etc. could also annoy people, but things like “btw” and “lol” have become time saving devices as well as “usb” and “IM”…. Language is like a flowing river, constantly changing. So what if we hold onto cliches that have a story behind them like immovable boulders in the river. They are short, and convey a packet of information that twenty “original” words may not communicate as effectively. If we hold on to nothing of the past, how dull and two dimensional our language will be.
I am very familiar with the cemetery use of ‘saved by the bell,’ but I challenge the need for the origin to the phrase. Today, the phrase would be used in context of a school, ‘saved’ in the terms of being saved from an assignment.
What made this phrase stick, if used from cemetery times, is its use in our vernacular, being an apt description of events that can be looked at with humor. Wasn’t there a TV show with its title?
Also, for boxing, those who follow like I do would know a fighter cannot be saved by the bell except in the last round by current rules. I’m not really sure about the rules in Rocky’s times, but if the phrase originated from boxing, the phrase’s origins are antiquated.
My personal opinion, the phrase was most likely used to apply to both situations as a prematurely buried person and a fighter knocked down in the ring, used independently in its context without stemming from the other. Regardless, today it would be used in context with a school day with the bell sounding its next class or day’s end.
Funny how the English language works.
i have not seen any of this,but maybe i have heared,so i can only say that its always good being safe and maybe we all deserve to be safe!and hope that the bell would an instrument to have a better things to do with that,by making a lot of good rhymes!
but a a bad music that could really damage many ears!.well its only a words that says the truth are thoose who have a good heart and has able to feel what is pain and being to be in the greeve!with all your eyes widely open!huh scary!watch out!hey!
Also had several other potential origins, just a few were :
Wedding bells, as in “The Widow’s farm was saved by the bell when she remarried the new man in town”.
The 2:00am (closing time) bell, as in “The plain looking girl at the bar was saved by the bell, when at 1:55 She had 5 new drinks in front of her”.
The closing bell for a stock trader or financial instituon, as in ” The stocks stopped dropping at the closing bell, and he only lost 90% of his investment”.
The phone ringing, or way back as in the Town Crier rnging his bell, as in “The tax man cometh, and the Crier announced a cancelled tax, saved by the bell”.
Last few, also having bells WAY back in the old days – Executioners, Cows(!?), Church steeples, Butlers and Maids, The Town mortuary cart( Dead body pickup), The Ice Cream truck, The Police in ALL times some places, and wrestlers who could’ve been stuck in certain hlds tha only end with a bell or a submission.
Good Luck!
What a great question? I like the answer from European Vacation starring chevy chase
I think that it is based on the bell in the coffin.
Colleen
There were actually two expressions which arose from this practice other than “saved by the bell” the term “dead ringer” also came about. Hence someone who had been saved by the bell was considered to be a dead ringer. As time goes on language evolves to suit the needs and tastes of each generation, and it is a very natural process, which is why dead ringer and saved by the bell have undergone changes in their respective meanings. As far as calling saved by the bell a cliche I would have to disagree, since it is a specific expression which conveys a specific meaning one might be more apt to think of it not as four separate words said frequently together but as a single unit used to convey something. Many languages have words and idioms that convey complex ideas in a single word, often they are untranslatable, and even when they are, meaning is lost and can often take many sentences to explain. English happens to convey these idioms in phrases rather then with a single word. Saved by the bell happens to be one of those phrases, like on the wagon or the scales fall from your eyes. It doesn’t make them cliched just another piece of the varied tapestry of English you have at your disposal.
I think the phrase probably was originated in the cemetery but then maybe not used so much because it was only exposed to those involved with funerals/cemeteries.
Then when boxing came around there was a new use for the phrase and so more people were exposed to it.
(sorry for the reference) Then when the tv show came around even more people were exposed to the phrase and were given more reason to use it.
Origin-wise, the cemetery, but I think the reason the phrase is popular is the tv show.
People believe what they want to believe.
There are no written documents or physical devices to support the idea of wide spread use of bells to signal live people who had been buried by mistake. Graveyard security was designed to prevent grave robbing, not listening for bells to ring.
There are ample examples of evidence to support the boxing phrase “saved by the bell” starting in February of 1893, when the Massachusetts newspaper The Fitchburg Daily Sentinel reported:
“Martin Flaherty defeated Bobby Burns in 32 rounds by a complete knockout. Half a dozen times Flaherty was saved by the bell in the earlier rounds.”
The phrase caught on and was used repeatedly, becoming more common in the 1930′s with the advent of boxing matches broadcast over the radio.
Well maybe. But in the context that the phrase is used, the boxing theory makes a lot more sense. I had heard about the cemetery/bell thing so it’s a possibility but that doesn’t mean it is the origin of the phrase just because it involves saving and bells.
huh…….both sound right, but the cemetery thing sounds more interesting……..
“A wise person once told me to avoid clichés like the plague.”
Isn’t “avoid like the plague” a cliche? Actually, in my field of ESL, we call them “idioms” and they are a part of our everyday language just as much as all English vocabulary is. And new ones are invented everyday!
“Saved by the bell” has probably had many origins and came from several different places so it is hard to pinpoint where exactly it came from originally. A student would say he/she is “saved by the bell” when a teacher calls on him/her to answer a tough question and the bell rings for the end of the class just in time. A boxer would say “saved by the bell” just before getting knocked out in a match.
My understanding is “a dead ringer” came from the graveyard slang and perhaps “saved by the bell” as well.
I always thought it had something to do with school since I first heard the expression on that old TV show lol.
But the boxing one makes alot more sense
Very odd – I was just thinking about this last night while watching boxing. I wondered how many people would say:
a. Church Bell
b. Firehouse Bell
c. School Bell
d. Boxing Bell
It is totally true. This is also where graveyard sift also came from. The watchmen who watched the cemetery did it at night and it was called the graveyard sift.
“A wise person once told you to avoid clichés like the plague?” That’s a cliche right there, dude.
“Saved by the bell” is a boxing axiom, it doesn’t appear in print until the 20th century.
As to the urban legend about being buried alive, well, there are numerous traditions to this day that do not believe in embalming or that require burial before sundown the next day, and none of them have a problem determining that the dead person is dead.
Learn to think critically, people, and ask questions, like:
Who paid the guy to watch the graveyard at night?
How did they find him?
How did they know he was staying awake?
Yes, there was an inventor who patented a long tube with a bell at one end and a pull at the other that you could put in a grave. Abraham Lincoln patented a flotation device for river rafts and no one ever bought that or built one, either.
All this banter on tintinnabulation of the bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells is fun stuff. (Poe wrote a poem about bells.) Interesting how so much of our lives and conscious states are jingled for a purpose.
The idiom of “scales falling from eyes” was actual. Paul of our New Testament (formerly known as Saul) on the road to Damascus was struck blind by God Jesus. He was earnest both to stop Paul from his zealous purging (killing) of Christians from spreading this news of Jesus raising from the dead, as well as being earnest to engage Paul in a soul deep conversion. After a few weeks, the scales fell from Paul’s eyes, who had a changed heart and destination, now.
Aw man…I thought this was going to be about Screech.
Yeah, that one was well known actually! No new news, but I guess not everyone already knows it. When i found out, i thought it was cool and creepy, and kinda scared to get put in a coffin when i die, but now I know that we can actually tell if someone is dead or not
hehehe (i thought that i might actually get buried alive when i was like 8… when i found this out 
)
Save by the bell relates to a school. It can be that the teacher is just about to discuss homework or in the tag game where if someone is about to tag someone and the bell rings. They say saved by the bell and the tag does not count. The cemetry thing is very interesting as well., I might look into it.
“A wise person once told me to avoid clichés like the plague.” lol…very funny!
Was anyone ever truly saved by this “bell” from the grave? Let’s say someone was buried presumed dead, but in actuality only in a brief coma. Once that person was placed six feet under all oxygen was cut off for who knows how long. That person might possibly suffocate long before they come out of the coma to ring this bell. I think this theory is interesting, but fiction at best. In addition to that, “dead ringer” sounds more like an oxymoron. The graveyard shift watcher was put in place to deter grave robbers. So I’ll have to go with boxing in my opinion as the origin.
Every hear the expression “since Heck was a pup”?
I assumed that Heck was another name for Satan and that a baby devil was a pup.
The Internet has suggested other origins instead, so my explanation is probably wrong.
I don’t care, I like my explanation the best.
I use it most often in reference to the telephone actually. Never knew about the grave origin, although obviously the telephone is too ‘recent’ to be the origin.. Wow! Scary!
I use it as in, for example a family quarrell or uncomfortable questions and then the phone rings. hehe. Saved by the bell!
‘nough said! DING! hahaha
The cemetery thing is most likely true. It’s also said that a person was stationed inside the cemetery to listen for the bells, making his task the origin of “graveyard shift”. Also, if he fell asleep and a person died because they weren’t dug out, that person was called a “dead ringer”.
“Sleep tight” came from when beds were made of mattresses put on frames of rope. Over time, the ropes would sag, and would need to be tightened. Hence, “sleep tight”.
“Knocking on wood” is an old way of calling for luck, as most people know. The origin of this is pagan in nature, as far as I know, and was used for asking wood sprites for luck, a wish and/or help with a task.
I’m surprised no one knows that ‘the Bell’ is a corruption of ‘la Belle’, from the traditional fairytale La Belle et la Bête (Beauty and the Beast) probably first put in print by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve in 1740. Belle’s father is sentenced to death for picking a rose from Beast’s garden. Belle offers to go back to the Beast in her father’s place. Thus the father is saved by la belle.
Interesting list of theories you have here. I’m sure you’ve heard of the naval use of so many “bells” as a way to mark time. When a particularly onerous task was coming up (like taking in sail, which required you to climb the rigging and haul it up by hand), you were saved from that task if the bells ringing the end of your watch came up. A lot of these terms can be traced to old naval use, like, “Mind your P’s and Q’s.” The popular theory is that it came from bars–”Mind your pints and quarts.” That would be highly uncharacteristic of the time, wouldn’t it? Who would be warning? The person selling the beer? Drinking buddies? Nobody cared, and at least you weren’t drinking gin. It’s also supposed to come from the printshop where typesetters had to mind their p’s and q’s because they’re reversed. But p’s and q’s are rarely used (work that into a poem) compared to b’s and d’s. So why wouldn’t it be, “Mind your b’s and d’s?” (Use “bee’s knees” in the poem.)
It’s all theory and sounds quite nice, but the fact is that a pintle is what allows a gun to traverse (swivel) and a quoin is the wedge placed under the breech to change elevation. In addition to these two being key to aiming the piece the quoin, being a simple wedge, could pop out under recoil and fly backwards to injure someone. Worse yet, if the pintle weren’t properly engaged you had a “loose cannon”–God forbid it have a lit fuse at the time. Minding your p’s and q’s was serious business in early naval engagements.
So I’ve now taught you a valuable lesson. I made all that naval crap up just now while I was sitting here. In reality, p’s and q’s refers to copyists being told to mind their pens and quires (24 or sometimes 25 sheets of paper; one-twentieth of a ream) and I just made that one up, too.
The gold standard for an origin is when it was first documented. That can be done for words, but it’s difficult-to-impossible to do with phrases. Phrases, when used in print, lag behind their spoken use. So the origins are quite simply not recorded. You can see this when current slang gets used in print–it often happens that they never quite get it right by that time, or the meaning has changed in the meantime. Look at what happened in my lifetime with ONE word modified by slang usage: gay. Brightly colored/fanciful/festive—homosexual—something that doesn’t work right.
I enjoy reading the various hypotheses regarding the origin of phrases, but the truth is that we can’t be sure. There is no way to ferret out the true origin of many of these phrases since the only people who can attest to them took it to the grave. Yes, I know it’s disappointing to find there’s no final, authoritative answer. But that’s life. There seldom is.
Any school kid had a totally different take on “being saved by the bell!
From the cemetery usage, where we also get the “wake” where friends and family sat up with the (alleged) dead person to see if he or she would join the festivities. And along with “saved by the bell” we also get “He’s a dead ringer.”
When writing, never use a large word when a diminutive one will do.
I go with the boxing hypothesis. It’s a lot simpler. It’s the kind of expression I would tend to associate with radio announcers covering a boxing match back in the days of Jack Dempsey. I can’t picture anybody in an earlier period, i.e. Victorian Era, using such a phrase coloquially. Also, although I can believe the whole thing about people fearing live burial enough to have the whole bell setup I’m skeptical about whether or not anyone was ever rescued from a live burial by it.
A friend had a book of where certain cliches come from. “Saved by the bell” is one of them. the other that’s also associated with the practice of burying the dead with a bell to prevent coma from being mistaken for death is “dead ringer.”
For whom the bell tolls…. Only two things are certain. Death and taxes. So if the bell tolls for you before April 15 then you are saved by the bell!
Yeah, I think it has to do with that whole death thing. It started when there was a deadly sickness going around. The victims would often go into comas, and it was believed that they were dead. After burying people that were actually alive, people would put a rope in the coffin. If the ‘corpse’ was really alive, they would pull the rope that lead to a bell. IF someone heard it, they would dig the person up.
Actually, Richard, there is documentation that the Victorians, who were terrified of death (and of being buried alive) popularized the grave bells. It wasn’t that long ago – it’s not like we’re talking about ancient Egyptians. The bells were tied to the corpse’s finger, and a watchman was hired to walk the grave for 7 days. Check out ‘Moonlight Becomes You’ by Mary Higgins Clark; it’s fiction, but she always does a ton of research.
I think the cemetery one is right. I’ve heard it from several sources before and I’ve never heard the boxing one.
i belive it is the cemertary one, but i know the Bless you” one. I forget which people did this, but when people sneezed others thought that their brains would explode or something of that sort. So they said “bless you” so God would help them and not kill them….i learned that last year in history.
P.S. also about the “dead ringer”, sometimes a person that had been buried would ring the bell and then be back in town, or sometimes a person would come into town that looked just like the person townspeople knew had just been buried, so they would comment to each other if they weren’t sure who they were looking at… “he’s the dead ringer for..so-and-so”…
Did you know the term “Graveyard Shift” also comes from cemeteries? The person who was assigned the duty of sitting in the grave yard at night to listen for ringing bells was said to have been assigned the graveyard shift.
I think the graveyard story is true..hence working the “graveyard shift”!
I always believed it was the cemetery theory. My history teacher said the same.
But what I want to know is, if this was true… how did people in comas survive being buried underground? Wouldn’t they have suffocated from lack of oxygen? If not, how did they breath while buried?
I watched a movie about that in science once and it said exactly what you described.
I always assumed the term “saved by the bell” referred to school. For example, a teacher hands a class a pop quiz and the bell rings–saved by the bell!
A man applied to ring a bell at a cathedral, and he had a unique way of doing it. He ran at the bell and smashed his face into it. He did this again and again, and it sounded so sweet that they hired him. Even though they were a bit disturbed at his method. But since this is not a good way to ring a bell, he died from the repeated impacts. People gathered round and asked, “Who was he?”
The vicar responded, “I have no idea, but his face rings a bell.”
The man’s bother, learning of this untimely demise and an opening for a bell ringer, came to apply for the job. His aim wasn’t quite as good as his brother’s because on his third rush he missed the bell entirely, flew out the other side of the bell tower and fell to the ground. Another tragedy in such a short time. But the people wanted to know who he was, and all the vicar could tell them was that he was a dead ringer for his brother.
‘Moonlight Becomes You’ by Mary Higgins Clark IS fiction. Ms Clark probably got the idea from the internet and not by doing historical research in primary documents. There are patents for all sorts of “I am alive” devices from that era, mostly signal flags, but few ever found there way into actual production.
No public cemetery in England has a record of any person who job it was to to “listen for the bells” or anything close. Some has listings for people who were hired to prevent grave robbing.
I know of no museum that has a actual “coffin bell.”
I can find no reference to the phrase “Saved by the bell” being used prior to the 1890′s.
People believe what they want to believe. Just because a lot of people believe something does not make it truthful or accurate.
Well, here in my country (Brazil) we use the same expression and I have always been sure it has to do with boxing. Besides, as a Karate competitor, I have always been familiar with the comcept of “being saved by the bell” in a match, which means, defeating the oponnent because the time available for the match was ended. Therefore, I agree with the first explanation for this expression. However, the second explanation does not sound completely absurd to me. I had heard the story before and it makes some sense. Nevertheless, the boxing origin explanation still sounds more reliable and comprehensible.
I believe the cemetery one is right too, never heard the boxing one. My history teacher (in high school)actually told me about the cemetery bell, not the internet.
OH, forgot to mention, it may have been earlier then the 17th century, when i was told about the bell we were studying shakespeare..or was it poe..one of those, and he had some kind of disorder where it would APPEAR that he was dead (maybe sleep apnea?) and be asleep for days and not breathing, apparently a common disorder (one of the reasons for the bell)
Death does not save you from taxes.
The saved by the Bell DID originate from the cemetery. Funny to think that some people don’t think about where the cliche came from before they use it. I love cliches. I don’t use them but I find their histories to be more amusing.
saved by the bell actualy means the coffin theroy. they used to dig up some of the old coffins and use them agin but some of them wold have shrads of wold on the bones from the lid were they had scratched at the wood with their nails.
“avoid cliches LIKE THE PLAGUE” Anyone else see a problem with that?
Sounds like Halloween in this blog
All things considered, every school boy knows they’ve been saved by the bell. If the truth be known, and not to pull any punches or hit below the belt, many a boxer knows which way the wind blows too.
But if I were dead to the world and about to turn over in my grave, I wouldn’t beat around the bush. I’d sit up and take notice, be mad as a hatter and cut off my right arm to be saved by the bell.
All kiddin’ aside, and not beat a dead horse, cliches are a dime a dozen and you can bet your bottom dollar they’ll wear out your welcome.
What you said is the truth. That’s also where the phrase “dead ringer” came from.
The term “graveyard shift” in those days literally meant that you were in the graveyard at night, listening for the possible sounding of bells to save the lives of people who could have accidentally been buried alive.
To think, people used to call me morbid and weird for knowing the origin of that cliche. :d
I’ve always liked to look up the history and origins of things like that. Glad I’m not the only person who likes to be well-read on odd subjects.
sucks for them
They all sound like they could pass as the origin, I am not quite sure what to believe. However, like a few others said, cliches are a quicker way to get ones point across without going into a lot of detail. They are just another part of our language. A language whose vocabulary is constantly growing. 30 years ago you would not have found the word “fax” in our dictionary, but you can today, along with a host of other words that we have accepted as part of the English language. It would be an interesting experiment to see just how long you could go without using a cliche. I’ll bet it doesn’t take too long at all!
Okay, I have to honest; I’m a bit older than the average web searcher. When I went to school we didn’t have computers we had text books to learn from. Damn, where did I put my walker? Anyway, the phrase “saved by the bell” is a very old phrase. Although it has been used to describe a boxer’s status, and even a popular kid’s show, the phrase pre-dates both the sport and television. Although, the phrase originated somewhere amidst the “16th” century, and for the exact reasons quoted in the article. I believe I learned about this in the 3rd or 4th grade during Halloween week when all the readings ghoulish and morbid. There were many times where the prematurely boxed bells were not heard, or the string broke, and they died trying to claw their way out of the grave. This would sometimes be discovered by grave robbers digging people up a few days later to steal the belongings of the dearly departed.
So anyway, there is the answer like it or not Mr. Snopes.com. Let this be a lesson people, don’t always rely on the computer for answers, sometimes it’s better to go to the source of all information, THE PUBLIC LIBRARY!
why does this mike always assume because he didn’t understand it the rest of us didn’t either?
sighs… this is redundant…
about the dead people which is not somewhat dead (ha ha!) is a lil bit scary but I’ve heard about that and I know it’s true.
haha.
nice fella
the dead from the coffin bell ring is true, but the quote makes way more sense for boxing as it is more OUR time frame. Just wait 200 some odd years from now it will be I was saved by the Taco Bell LOL
This explanation is very true, which also brought about another term, referring to working the late night shift anywhere. The undertaker assigned someone to sit in the cemetary and listen for the bell for two days, hence, the term “graveyard shift”. (Betcha didn’t know that!)
If I had posed Mike’s question to my class and these were the responses, I would have to give the following grades:
A – Richard (2/28/09) because he gave an actual
reference to support his theory
B – to two or three others for alluding to a scholarly
reference
B- – to gdwallis (3/2/09). He didn’t answer the
question but his cliched answer gave me a
chuckle
D – to just about everyone else (for guessing,
speculating, or deciding on your own what
the origin of the phrase should be and not
being interested in the existence of facts)
The next time you go to the internet to find something factual, remember that this page only had one verifiable answer – everything else was opinion !
I have been told in school it is the graveyard shift theory, but I will be looking into this, I like how one person said u cant really be saved by the bell in boxing, I do beleive it is the graveyard shift one, btw, The comment saying that when they were buried they would be cut off from all air for who knos how long and it doesnt make sense, well they didnt have our knowlege that we have today they didnt kno that it would kill them anyways if they were buried alive. And just the paper lines for the boxing thing about saved by the bell, doesnt prove that it originated from that, u hear teachers say saved by the bell if they ask u a question and ur dismissed , doesnt mean it originated from school, especially that school wasnt even a thing most ppl could go to back then, other then the rich. The church theory ive never heard what so ever, and i have nothing to say against it its a good theory, but I will definately look into this.
It is funny how pompous so many people are. Thinking that manking was so primitive in the 1500s in all things. Such as them being too primitive to document their language and phrases.
However, they were NOT primitive. There is plenty of documentation about popular sayngs. They realized the importance of documenting hisotry just like we do today. And guess what? There is NO documentation of “saved by the bell” anywhere. And yes…there absolutely would be if it was really used 500 year sago.
The fact of the matter is, there wasn’t. All of this is from a thoroughly debunked e-mail hoax that started TEN YEARS AGO! And morons are still quoting it! (To the person who claims to have learnabout it in class…DEMAND a refund on your tuition, because you are not being educated.)