Third time’s the charm

Third time’s the charm

The phrase I selected today is “third time’s the charm,” which appeared at the beginning of today’s episode. PyeongChang bid unsuccessfully for both the 2010 and 2014 Olympics, but they finally won on their third try, for these 2018 Olympics. For PyongChang, the third time was the charm—meaning they tried twice before, didn’t make it, but they did make it on the third try.

A physical charm is something that has magic power. You can also say something (or someone) is charming if it’s nice, delightful, or makes you feel good. So it’s common in English to say “the third time’s the charm” when you’ve tried something twice, failed twice, and then succeeded on the third try.

I did a quick Google News search for this phrase and came up with lots of recent results in Google News, which means that the phrase is pretty common in the media. Here are a few examples from the news this week. The third time was the charm for Terrell Owens. He was a famous American football player who was elected to the football Hall of Fame on his third try; he didn’t get enough votes to join the Hall of Fame in either of his first two years of eligibility. But for “T.O.”, the third time was the charm: he got in this year.

Will the third time be the charm for going to the moon? Donald Trump became the third US president to call for astronauts to return to the moon. Though two previous presidents also proposed sending astronauts back to the moon, neither effort was successful. Will this third time be the charm? I kind of doubt it, but you never know.

Here’s something to know about this phrase. You never say the first or second time is the charm. The only time you would use a higher number than three is if you wanted to joke a little bit about how many times you needed to succeed.

So with that in mind, here’s a funny example: it’s a headline from the New York Times. It says, “Forty-third Time’s the Charm: Caroline Wozniacki Wins Her First Major Title.” Caroline Wozniacki is a tennis player and she won her first major tennis championship after ten years on the tour. This was her forty-third major tournament—and her first win. So now you understand why that headline is funny: the forty-third time was the charm for Caroline Wozniacki when she won the Austaralian Open tennis tournament last month.

Caroline Wozniacki, by the way, is one of my favorite tennis players and I was really happy to see her win the Australian Open last month. That’s all for today; I hope you have a chance to catch some of the Olympics over the next week or so. Don’t forget to click “subscribe” if you’re in the Apple Podcasts or “follow” if you’re on Spotify so you never miss an episode. We will be back with another edition of Plain English on Monday, when we’ll talk about the new fan-created Harry Potter movie. Don’t miss it; see you then.