Meaning:
Todd Beamer (1968 - 2001) was a passenger on United Airlines Flight 93 when it
was hijacked on September 11th 2001.
He was accorded hero status in the USA when it was discovered that he had
helped organise an attempt to regain control of the plane from the hijackers.
His last audible words, overhead during a phone call, were:
Are you guys ready? Let's roll.
(The transcript of an onboard conversation overheard by phone operator Lisa
Jefferson after Beamer had just finished speaking to her.)
Background:
The facts of the hijackings on September 11th 2001 are well known. Beamer was
a passenger aboard United Airlines Flight 93, which was initially bound for
San Francisco. His role in the tragic events involved him making phone calls
to alert ground staff and attempting to disarm the hijackers who had
commandeered the plane.
He informed an airline representative that some of the plane's passengers
were planning to `jump on' the hijackers and land the plane.
The outcome of the rescue attempt isn't precisely known. Some minutes later,
the plane crashed in a field in Somerset County, Pennsylvania.
- www.phrases.org.uk [edited]
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Since 911, the connotation of "let's roll" might have changed forever.
I love idioms for exactly what they are: a group of words established by usage
as having a meaning not deducible from those of the individual words. To the
uninitiated, people talking in idioms and slang might as well be communicating
in Morse code. A friend posted a shot of a wierd-looking twig and asked "Why is
this piece of wood flipping me the bird?" and it took me 10min to find what it
meant in the dictionary, not under 'flip,' but 'bird.'
