Author Archives: derekperren

“God don’t like ugly.”

This saying was told to my informant  when he would act out of line as a kid. This usually came as a warning prior to some harsh discipline like a spanking or a grounding.  He said one time he had a temper tantrum in the supermarket over a piece of candy. When he wouldn’t stop his mother harshly warned him, “God don’t like ugly.”, and he knew he was in trouble.

“Once begun is half done.”

My mom told me this wise saying when I was young, and had trouble getting my chores done.  They always seemed like they took so long that I would just not do them until I had to be forcibly told. My mother explained to me that all chores are boring and tedious and the hardest part is getting started. In other words, once you’ve started a job you’ve nearly finished because the hardest part is getting over.

“It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”

My informant told me that her mother was the first person to tell her this phrase. When my informant was a teenager she had a boyfriend that  treated other people with disrespect all the time. my informant could not take his attitude anymore so she had to split up with him. This left her wondering if she actually did the right thing. When she consulted her mother about it, her mother said, “Well, it’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”, and left it at that.

The early bird catches the worm.

This proverb was told to me by my father. He explained to me that what he meant was that a successful day starts early in the morning before anyone else wakes up. What he meant was that going the extra mile, doing things that other people don’t or won’t do is the best way to of going after something that others are also striving for.

This saying was first recorded in John Ray’s A Collection of English Proverbs in 1670.

A Stitch in Time Saves Nine.

My informant first heard this saying from her grandmother when she was a child. She said that her grandmother was teaching her to sew using the baste method, which uses one long stitch over a piece of fabric in order to hold the fabric together for the main stitches which are smaller. My informant told me that along with the reasoning for using this method, her grandmother used the phrase, “A stitch in time saves nine.”, meaning that using this method, even though it seemed time-wasting and tedious, would save time in the ling run by keeping the the fabric in place and preventing mistakes when sewing the small stitches.

The person who originally said the phrase was Benjamin Franklin. My informant’s grandmother likely read it in his Poor Richard’s Almanac. Benjamin Franklin wrote the almanac under the pseudonym “Poor Richard” between 1733 and 1758. My informant’s grandmother used the phrase in a situation that actually involved a stitch, but the saying can also be applied to a number of situations.