Proverb
Original
“See a pin, pick it up and al day long youll have good luck
Claires version/ Modern day version
See a penny, pick it up and all day long youll have good luck
Her mother told this proverb to Claire when she was very young, probably around the time she was six or so. One day when Claire was with her mom on a shopping trip, her mom spotted a penny on the ground and Claire ignored it, passing it by. Her mom stopped her and asked why she didnt want to pick up the penny. Claire answered that it was dirty and she did not want a dirty penny. Her mother replied that passing by a penny and not picking it up was bad luck. Picking it up however, would ensure good luck for the whole day Claire said that since she was young she believed her mother and since that day has always picked up a penny that she has seen laying on the floor. She believes that this proverb was meant to teach her to be more observant of her surroundings.
This proverb is interesting to me because it is one of the many proverbs that teach us about things that cause bad luck or cause good luck. This one incident is what taught Claire about the idea of good luck and bad luck and yet this saying has been said for hundreds of years. Claire mentioned that her mom later explained to her where the saying came from. Claire described that her mother said that they used the saying because on American pennies the words in god we trust” are printed on each one. Thus the idea is that God sees you are having a bad day or things arent just going right and drops a message in front of you telling you to trust him. Thus it is from that we can see that this is a proverb that has been passed down for many centuries and most likely originated out of the concept of religion
I agree with what Claire says in that it was the way she learned about things that can cause good luck or bad luck. For me, I learned about good luck items from having a horseshoe. I believe that everyone learns about things that may bring about good luck from a small thing that their parents taught them. This saying is extremely popular and is heard in movies such as Grease. Its presence in Grease shows just how popular the saying is, since Grease was a very influential movie at the time and targeted a new type of generation and so to have this saying in the movie said by one of the main characters, this proverb was most likely very widespread.