meaning of "bring somebody on"

[lost_soul]

Hi again,

Could you please tell me what "bring somebody on" means?
The context is as follows:

[BuddhaGeo]

"Bring those idiots on" is a slang expression such as "Bring it on", which means something like "Is that all of you've got? Show me all you can do"!

[lost_soul]

Thanks, but I'd like to know what our teachers have to say on the subject.
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Alex

A native speaker of Russian

[Yankee]

Hi Alex

BuddhaGeo gave you a pretty good definition of "bring it on". The 'it' in 'bring it on' can be 'something' or also sometimes 'somebody'. The sense is often "show me what you can do -- I'm sure I can handle even the most/best you can do." In this case, Gardener seems to be saying "I'm sure I can handle the most/best of anything the idiots can do. I have no problem with any of it."

It's a little difficult to say anything further about the text. The problem is that I'm not really sure who the "idiots" are supposed to be or what Gardener's role in the text is. Is Gardener staying at a hotel or does Gardener work at a hotel?

Did you also want to know what a 'tab' is?
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Amy
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ESL teacher, translator, and a native speaker of American English

[lost_soul]

Hi, Amy

Thanks !
Yeah, I was thinking of that meaning, but it did not (and still does not) seem to fit the rest of the text (from my point of view).
Yeah, he was on a tour (he was a poet and they'd asked him to go on a tour for money) and stayed at a hotel where he was enjoying free things, such as free movies, free shining-up of his boots..., but he had a grudge against the boss (who had set the whole thing up) and it might be that idiots refers to that boss and her crew....
(Actually, it was an f-word, but I decided to water the text down and replace the f-word with idiots)

BTW, I'm not 100% sure what a tab is ... maybe some system you use to keep track of expenses... Could you also shed light on this "tab", please?
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Alex

A native speaker of Russian

[Jamie (K)]

The tab is the bill for services. When you pick up the tab for a meal in a restaurant, it means you pay the bill for yourself and the other people. Sometimes it's used to mean some expense, as you'd hear in a company meeting, when someone says, "Our department will not pick up the tab for your mistake!" "Tab" can also mean a running count of what is used or consumed, so if you're drinking beer in a bar, the waitress might say, "Do you want to pay each time, or do you want me to run a tab?" The sentence, "Keep the tab," usually means something like, "Keep the change." You'd say it to a waiter or a taxi driver.

I think in this case the F-word refers to the in-room movies, and "bring those f----ers on!" means, "Give me all the movies you've got! I'll watch them all!"

"Bring it on!" can also mean something like, "Let 'er rip!" That's a call for someone to set some powerful process in motion, such as to start up a very powerful machine, to open up a big valve so that water comes flooding through, or to step on the gas in a big muscle car.