Saved by the Bell.. I just found out yesterday where that saying came from. 10 points to the first to tell me?

Question

It was explained on tv yesterday, thats how I know and I was supprised at the reason ..I'll give you a hint, there was another that was used ( Dead Ringer )

Answer 1

After I read this answer I thought of the episode of "Crime Scene Investigation" where this one guy was telling another about the bell ringing to signify the person was buried alive. After a bell rang, scaring the younger guy, a hand came up out of the grave. It's a wonder the two guys didn't have heart attacks!

http://www.eduqna.com/Trivia/2776-1-triv...

Answers:

Back in the day (Renaissance era) when folks were buried they weren't always positive the person was actually dead. Usually because lead poisoning gave symptoms that someone was dead when they were actually in a coma. Lead poisoning was common because they used pewter for drinking cups and plates and when you add alcohol or anything citrus to pewter the lead comes out. This is also why they had "wakes" to see if the "dead" person would wake up after severe lead poisoning.

They installed bells attached to a string that lead down into the coffin at the grave site in case someone would wake up. Hence the term saved by the bell, otherwise they would be buried alive. Also this is why we have the term "graveyard shift". Someone had to stay at the graveyard all night in case someone woke up.

"Saved by the bell" was later adapted to boxing...and for some reason people think that is its origin...but they are misinformed.

Answer 2

I've read that 'This is boxing slang that came into being in the latter half of the 19th century'. The website that tells me this discredits the coffin / bell theory :)

Answer 3

I thought it came from boxing, where a boxer in trouble can be saved by the bell signifying the end of the round.

But some people say it comes from "safety coffins", back in the day it was possible for someone to be in a coma (not dead) and be accidentally buried.  So they would have a string attached to a bell, with one end of the string extending down into the buried coffin.  Someone who was wrongly buried could ring the bell, alerting someone who would dig them up.

However, that's believed to be something of an urban legend - the boxing explanation makes more sense.  

And "dead ringer" doesn't come from there either - in this case, "dead" means "exact", as in "dead on".  A dead ringer is an exact duplicate of something, not a person in a coffin ringing a bell.  

Don't believe everything you see on TV...facts take a while to straighten out, but urban legends spread quickly.

EDIT: The buried-alive theory just doesn't hold water.  It's an irrational fear.  Even if someone were in a death-like coma, they wouldn't survive the embalming process or an autopsy.  Even if neither of those procedures were performed, spending a couple hours prior to burial in a coffin with very little air would turn the wrongly-identified corpse into a real one.

And "Graveyard shift" was just the best time to dig graves, without a lot of people around.  It wasn't people sitting on their butts waiting for a bell to ring.  Ridiculous.

Answer 4

Use to be  .... when people were buried they sometimes weren't sure if they were really dead, so they had a bell next to the grave for the people to ring if they were buried alive.

Answer 5

i am always reading about this.  When the dead or supposed dead were buried there was a bell to ring if they were not really dead so they could be saved.  How scary was that?  I would have died with fright.