# ring someone up



## dichelson

Hello. I have the following sentence:

"Steve and Levi went to the cash register without a word, and Charlie rang them up."

Charlie is the barman, so I figure "rang them up" means "calculated how much they owed him". Is that correct? Thank you


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## Wobby

Well, personally, I haven't heard of such a usage of 'rang them up' before - to me, it would suggest 'made a phone call to them' / 'phoned them'. Does that work in the context of your question? Perhaps it is an AE colloquialism, in which case, they could probably confirm.


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## SleepingLeopard

dichelson said:


> Hello. I have the following sentence:
> 
> "Steve and Levi went to the cash register without a word, and Charlie rang them up."
> 
> Charlie is the barman, so I figure "rang them up" means "calculated how much they owed him". Is that correct? Thank you


 
Yes, it is an American usage.


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## celestino

Ciao,
ring up = enter money in a shop till (drawer).
So I suppose they give the barman the money and he puts the money in the till.


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## lasirena

"To ring somebody up" means to scan all of the items that they want to purchase and process the transaction.  A cashier rings up shoppers.  Or in this case, the bartender is ringing up the customers.


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## Cassidy's Mom

The bartender "rang them up"- charged them for the items/food (using the cash register.)


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## Raimondo

Could one say, "Ill cassieri ha fatto la somma".


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## Necsus

For 'ring up' Hazon gives:
*2* registrare, battere (in cassa): _he rang up 5 pounds_ (_on the till_), ha battuto cinque sterline (in cassa).


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## Cassidy's Mom

Here in Texas we call cashiers "checkers" and they "check" (ring up) or "check out" the customers (ring up their groceries/purchases).  But that would be more in a store than in a bar.


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## brian

Well, I guess I'll mention it since no one has yet. (Or maybe it's just so obvious.. ) The phrase comes from the fact that cash registers (before the electronic ones) used to make a ringing sound when the drawer opened.

A good example is the "ring(ing)" of the cash register in the beginning of Pink Floyd's "Money"!

It's also why "chi-ching" (onomatopoeia for the ringing sound of a cash register) is used when someone has just gotten some money, like if I picked up a quarter on the street.


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## callmechia

So if I wanted one of my workers to use the register for a while to take care of customers, I'd say "can you come ring for a bit". In Italian, could it be something like "mi potrebbe essere cassiera per qualche minuti"?


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## Necsus

callmechia said:


> So if I wanted one of my workers to use the register for a while to take care of customers, I'd say "can you come ring for a bit". In Italian, could it be something like "mi potrebbe essere cassiera per qualche minuti"?


Hi, Callmechia. It should be "mi potrebbe/_potresti_ _fare da _cassiera per qualche minuto?". But I suppose the most commonly used sentence in that case would be "puoi stare alla cassa per un po'/qualche minuto?"


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## Broca

In a novel by Eric Van Lustbader, a woman goes to a firing range. I've found this sentence: 

_She paid for an hour, chose her weapon, and *was rung up*_. 
_She was given a 9mm Glock, ammunition, and a set of sound-dampening headphones. She entered the range itself..._

Now, by reading this thread I thought it could mean that she paid what she owed, but she has already paid! So what is the author talking about here?

Thank you in advance. 
Andrea


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## Dearson

Mi baso sui post dei madrelingua qui sopra.

_Pagò per un’ora, scelse la sua arma e le fecero il conto. Le diedero una Glock 9 mm, delle munizioni e un paio di cuffie antirumore. Entrò nel poligono...
_
Il conto totale include sia il range time che il range equipment. Così la tradurrei.


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## Broca

Oddio, pensavo fosse il forum English Only! 
Grazie della risposta. In effetti potrebbe essere, anche se secondo me non è scritta granché bene questa frase. Però altre spiegazioni non sembrano plausibili, e non sembrano esserci altri significati per _ring up. _
Grazie di nuovo, 
Andrea


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## london calling

Broca said:


> Now, by reading this thread I thought it could mean that she paid what she owed, but she has already paid! So what is the author talking about here?


Concordo con l'ipotesi di Dearson sopra.

Poi devo dire però che  non so di dove fosse questo poster, ma non 'to ring up' non è un'espressione idiomatica soltanto AE. Io ho lavorato in un supermercato quando andavo a scuola negli anni 70 a Londra e si utilizzava tranquillamente 'ring up' per dire 'battere' un importo. 



Wobby said:


> Well, personally, I haven't heard of such a usage of 'rang them up' before - to me, it would suggest 'made a phone call to them' / 'phoned them'. Does that work in the context of your question? Perhaps it is an AE colloquialism, in which case, they could probably confirm.


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## johngiovanni

Forse un campanello suonò, segnalando che lei ebbe il permesso di prendere l'ascensore o le scale fino al livello dove si trovava il poligono di tiro.


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## rrose17

Dearson's interpretation is probably right. Not to throw an wrench in the works but I wanted to say that there's an alternate meaning possible here, if the shooting range is upstairs from the place where she's picking up her weapon and paying her bill. For security reasons there's probably a door that someone has to buzz to let her through and then she would go upstairs where she'd be given the weapon. In this case you could also say she was rung up. But then I have absolutely no experience with shooting ranges outside of movies and TV.


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## johngiovanni

Ciao Rrose.  The wrenches we are throwing are very similar!
(Except mine's a spanner.)


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## rrose17

johngiovanni said:


> Ciao Rrose.  The wrenches we are throwing are very similar!


Always read the small print! Sorry missed that...


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## ain'ttranslationfun?

So might it be "_ha suonato/chiamato_ [on the house [(inter)phone] _per fargli entrare_" or however that would be said in correct Italian?

(By the way, chances are she'd pay by card ('plastic') nowadays, so it's the use of 'to ring up' as onomatopoeia, as Brian says in #10; as in 'to dial' a phone; it's a reference to the way things were done in the past. (I spell it "ka-ching".)


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## Dearson

Mi sfugge il senso. Se _ring her up_ significa _telefonala, she was rung up _sarebbe _lei fu telefonata. _Non capisco il nesso con il campanello o il piano superiore. O meglio, non capisco come _ring up_ vi ha fatto pensare a un citofono o interfono. Mi spiegate?


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## johngiovanni

Dearson said:


> Mi sfugge il senso.



Anch'io.  Ho mandato una email all'autore. Vediamo la risposta.


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## rrose17

Dearson said:


> O meglio, non capisco come _ring up_ vi ha fatto pensare a un citofono o interfono. Mi spiegate?


If you live in an apartment building and a friend comes to visit and presses the bell downstairs for your apartment, you might say on the intercom "One second, I'll ring you up." which means you'll press the buzzer/bell which will allow your friend to pass through the doors and come upstairs. I suppose it's as if by ringing you are lifting that person up. You could just as easily say "I'll ring you in" meaning you're opening the door for them by ringing the bell/pressing the buzzer.


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## johngiovanni

Ciao Rrose.  I agree exactly, my first thought as expressed in post 17 - mainly because I could not see any other meaning at the time.  However, it would still be interesting to know what the author intended when he wrote those words.


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## Dearson

rrose17 said:


> If you live in an apartment building and a friend comes to visit and presses the bell downstairs for your apartment, you might say on the intercom "One second, I'll ring you up." which means you'll press the buzzer/bell which will allow your friend to pass through the doors and come upstairs. I suppose it's as if by ringing you are lifting that person up. You could just as easily say "I'll ring you in" meaning you're opening the door for them by ringing the bell/pressing the buzzer.



Thank you Rose. In this case, I suggest _Pagò per un’ora, scelse la sua arma e la fecero salire_.


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## johngiovanni

Good morning, Dearson.

It turns out you were right first time in post 14.  The author has replied:

"Rung up means to pay for, so in this case she was rung up to pay for the target session. 

Origin is from an old school cash register, where customers' items were rung up on the mechanical machine, one by one."


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## Dearson

It still amazes me how words can have so many different meanings in English, JG. I don’t think it’s the same in Italian!


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## johngiovanni

I've never studied it in detail, Dearson, but it may have a lot to do with our notorious phrasal verbs.  Sometimes the same sequence of words can mean very different things. So "blow up" can mean "explode" or "inflate", depending on the context.   See Phrasal Verbs List | EnglishClub  and "ring up" / "rung up" can clearly mean different things depending on the context..

So, in the context of this post, we would have had no problems at all with "When the items were rung up on the register, the total came to $20.17.", but some of us had questions about "(_*She*_)...was rung up".

I guess Italian also has its problems.  "Figuriamoci" seems straightforward in some contexts and a bit of a nightmare in others.

Still, it's a nice world when a successful author on the other side of the Atlantic can take the trouble to reply to an email from someone he's never met.


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## Tellure

johngiovanni said:


> I've never studied it in detail, Dearson, but it may have a lot to do with our notorious phrasal verbs.  Sometimes the same sequence of words can mean very different things. So "blow up" can mean "explode" or "inflate", depending on the context.   See Phrasal Verbs List | EnglishClub  and "ring up" / "rung up" can clearly mean different things depending on the context..
> 
> So, in the context of this post, we would have had no problems at all with "When the items were rung up on the register, the total came to $20.17.", but some of us had questions about "(_*She*_)...was rung up".
> 
> I guess Italian also has its problems.  "Figuriamoci" seems straightforward in some contexts and a bit of a nightmare in others. *Verissimo*.
> 
> Still, it's a nice world when a successful author on the other side of the Atlantic can take the trouble to reply to an email from someone he's never met. *Incredibile! Bravo tu ad averci creduto e provato! *


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