In my conversations with Julia, I constantly use commonplace terms which she has somehow managed to avoid becoming acquainted with. "Egg on my face," for instance, and "what a stuffed shirt that guy was." The latter phrase might not even be a commonplace... But it occurs to me that many of these phrases are truly strange.
Over Thanksgiving break, my sister and I puzzled out once and for all the phrase "A stitch in time saves nine." Neither of us had ever known what the hell that was all about. It turns out it has to do with sewing- kind of obvious in retrospect. My sister had always thought that the phrase referred to some sort of warping of the space-time fabric which allowed for illogically fast (and thus time-saving) travel- this is likely due to her having read A Wrinkle in Time as a child.
I prefer that explanation.
Next Phase.
2 years ago
I like this like a hermit crab likes an orange peel.
ReplyDeleteYou really didn't know what "a stitch in time saves nine" meant? Like not even a little bit?
ReplyDeleteGuilty as charged, my friend. Guilty as charged.
ReplyDeleteSewing is so old-fashioned. My sister's reading of it really looks to the future: one day, it will have to be stressed that warping the space-time fabric saves on travel time.
But what does it save nine of?
ReplyDeleteNine minutes- I think Einstein showed that a warp in the space-time fabric saves about nine minutes of travel time, pretty much any way you cut it.
ReplyDeleteWhat does it save nine of? That was my biggest problem with the expression-- it wasn't obvious to me that the nine referred back to the "stitch" part. (I think it sounds like a newspaper headline: "STITCH IN TIME SAVES NINE"). If I had any computer drawing program besides MS Paint, I would draw a wrinkled sheet of the night sky full of stars with a huge needle poking through and nine people falling through the eye of the needle.
ReplyDeleteDid you take a lot of acid as a kid?
ReplyDelete