text: “a stitch in time saves nine”

Context: after telling my partner the Chinese proverb “未雨绸缪 (wèi yǔ chóu móu) or “repair the roof while the sun is shining” she said that another English proverb with the same message a “stitch in time saves nine”. She said that he learned the proverb from her grandmother who lived in rural America. It represents a universal truth about efficiency.

Analysis: Proverbs are often used from parents, telling their children a warning in order to induce better behavior and to instill a moral within children. This is an older proverb that has withstood the test of time which is impressive in our fast paced consumer culture, and has been passed on through oral tradition. This also demonstrates multiplicity and variation of folklore as two different proverbs from two completely different languages have the same meaning and cultural effect, employed in the same way in order to teach lessons.