I saw someone recently use the phrase “a broken clock is right twice a day.” I stopped to think about it, and I don’t think it’s necessarily accurate. I think the phrase is “a stopped clock is right twice a day.”
After all, this is supposed to mean that even if the clock is stuck on a particular time, that time will roll around eventually. But, what about a 24 hour clock? Even in that case, it’d only be right once a day. This still presumes a clock with hands as opposed to digital. A stopped digital clock might not show any time at all, and thus never be right.
But back to the broken clock thing…a clock can be broken a lot of different ways. It can be fast, it can be slow, it can get faster and slower. Without more specifics there just isn’t a way to be necessarily sure when it’ll be right.
I’m not even sure why I’m thinking about this so much. I just get irked by platitudes and couldn’t leave this alone.