Tag Archives: stopped

A stopped clock is right twice a day, but its still broken

“A stopped clock is right twice a day, but its still broken”

My informant modified the classic fold saying “A stopped clock is still right twice a day” and modified it during a group coding session. One of the members of the group’s portion of code was working about 75% of the time, but could not reproduce the errors on his computer, so he kept claiming the problem was fixed and refused to work on it. After  my informant said the above proverb, he finally gave in and worked on fixing his code. Its interesting to note that by adding the second part of the proverb, my informant completely changed the meaning of the saying. I interpret the original saying as meaning that “even if something is broken, it still has some use”, however by adding the second part of the proverb, the meaning becomes, “If something is broken, it may still has some use, but its still broken”. These sayings can also be applied to people and the meanings remain relatively the same. “Even a stupid person is right sometimes” versus “A stupid person can be right sometimes, but their still stupid.”