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Phrase: Have a ring to it
Yes, bells ring, and they may sound very nice.
A bell, however, is not the only thing to have a ring to it.
Words such as titles, names or even phrases can have a nice ring to them as well.
For us to say that something has a ring to it, it must sound pleasant, appealing or music to your ears.
If you’re a businesswoman, Hiroko Nakagawa, President of Marketing, may have a nice ring to it if it’s your name.
Of course, how good things sound may depend on your situation.
If you have just finished a 15 km hike, steak and mushrooms with gravy and all the fixings may have a fantastic ring to it.
Whereas at 5:30 on a Monday morning, as you are getting ready to go to work, the ring may not be as sweet-sounding.
Most often, have a ring to it is used in positive situations where the word, title or phrase causes people to experience a pleasant emotion.
On those occasions, a positive adjective such as ‘have a NICE ring to it‘ is used.
This phrase can also be used to indicate negative emotions.
If you hear someone say, ‘Vince Walsh Vice-President of Acme Productions’ has a hollow ring to it, then they are not happy with the title.
There are various reasons why that could be.
Perhaps the position is more work than they thought it would be.
Maybe they thought being vice president would be a very glamorous but not as stressful a situation.
If something has a nice ring to it, you are happy with the way it sounds.
On the other hand, if something has a hollow ring to it, it’s not what you expected it to be.
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Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test
This post is understandable by someone with at least a 7th-grade education (age 12).
On the Flesch-Kincaid reading-ease test, this post scores 74.
The higher the score on a scale of 0 – 100, the easier the passage is to read.