You don't need to look up any etymology because the word "ringer" is plainly a noun and so it doesn't have a past tense. I really thought the joke was so obvious that it wouldn't need any explanation, especially when posting to a memes community that would be expecting jokes.

[–] varden@lemmy.world 11 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Yeah I was surprised to see the down votes, that was some top notch shitposting

[–] BillyClark@piefed.social 6 points 3 days ago

I think that if you post anything remotely clever, it all depends on the first vote. If the first vote is an upvote, everybody will look at it as if it might be clever, because it's upvoted. If the first vote is a downvote, everybody expects it to be stupid.

I think that's one of the reasons why Reddit had a feature that would hide votes for a while, because that first vote is so powerful.

[–] iamthetot@piefed.ca 5 points 3 days ago

I really thought the joke was so obvious that it wouldn't need any explanation

Poe's Law, friend.