Stitches

Explanation for the proverb "A stitch in time saves nine" at school level?

Public Comments

1. "Measure twice cut once" It is better to take your time than to do it hastly over and over
2. It`s all water under the bridge to me!
3. What this is saying is that if you fix something sooner, then you'll save yourself time later. The exact translation, as this is stated, would be that if you put one stitch in a shirt that has ripped, over time, it will save you having to put in nine when the shirt tears even more. Simpler: Fix stuffs sooner so it will be less of a hassle later.
4. Taking care of little problems prevent you from having to fix bigger problems. One stitch in a little rip today saves you from sewing 10 stitches in a large tear tomorrow.
5. If you stop and fix something as soon as you notice a problem, you can avoid bigger problems later. For example: You notice the clasp on you backpack isn't fastened securly. If you stop and fasten it, then everythings okay. But if you think, "Oh, it'll be alright, I'm going to have to get my books out when I get to class anyway..." So you set your backpack down by your locker so you can get your notebook for History and Johnny comes along and needs to get in his locker so he moves your backpack out of the way, not realizing that the clasp is not fastened, and spills most of the stuff out of your backpack onto the floor. All of the time and trouble it took to pick everything up and put it back in the backpack could have been avoided if you have simply "fixed the problem to start with" by fastening the clasp.
6. If there's a little bitty hole in my pocket, I can barely tell it's there, and maybe I won't bother taking the time to fix it. But next thing you know, there's a hole big enough for my keys to fall out of my pocket and get lost. If had taken the time to fix that little bitty hole with just one or two stitches, I wouldn't be looking all over for my keys. Now it will take me 9 or 19 stitches to fix the darn pocket, and I still haven't found my keys! It doesn't just work for pockets, and there's more to it than sewing. When we fix a small problem, we avoid it turning into a big problem. My room is a little bit messy today. If I take just a few minutes to tidy it up, it will stay nice all the time. If I let it go, next thing you know it's such a mess I don't want to face it. I close the door with an embarrassed laugh. When I want to find something in this messy room, I end up throwing things around to look, and it just gets worse and worse. Oh, if only I'd taken a few minutes when it was just a little untidy!
7. A prompt action will avert more serious trouble. For example, Changing the car's oil every 7,000 miles is a stitch in time. The complete form of this adage, a stitch in time saves nine, appeared in Thomas Fuller's 1732 proverb collection, Gnomologia, and is so well known that it often is stated in shortened form. Ogden Nash played with it in the title for his verse collection, A Stitch Too Late Is My Fate (1938).