This mini episode teaches you the fun and useful expression “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
Episode 169 of the Everybody ESL podcast is a mini episode that teaches you the fun and useful expression “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Send your questions about English and your suggestions for future episodes to EverybodyESL@gmail.com! (And let me know if you’d like to record the introduction to a future episode.)
In this episode, I am going to teach you a very interesting expression. This expression is used in a very specific context. It is used when somebody wants to give advice about a certain kind of situation. Here is the expression: “If it ain't broke, don't fix it.” If it ain't broke, don't fix it. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
The reason I think this expression is so interesting is because it uses some elements of nonstandard English. An English teacher or an English textbook would probably say that this sentence is incorrect. It is no good. It uses nonstandard English. But I think that's what makes it interesting.
Let's look at the parts of this sentence. The first part I want to mention is the word ain't. That's a-i-n-apostrophe-t. Ain’t is very interesting word. It's actually a very old word in English. And when it was a new word, it was considered standard English. It was proper. But now it is often considered nonstandard or improper. But it is a real word of English that has been around for a long time. Ain't can mean a lot of different things. It can mean “isn't,” “aren't,” “am not.” It can mean “wasn't” or “weren't.” It can mean “didn't.” It can mean “hasn't.” It can mean all kinds of negative words like that. In this sentence, ain't means “is not.”
All right. The next word that I need to talk about is the word broke. B-r-o-k-e. The reason this is nonstandard is because broke does not work as an adjective in this case. We don't normally say things like “The window is broke” or “That cup got broke.” Normally, in standard English, in regular English, we would use the word broken: “The window is broken.” “The cup got broken.” But in this set expression—“If it ain't broke, don't fix it”—you see that broke is used in place of the adjective broken.
Now that we have seen what some of these words mean, it is easier to understand our sentence. “If it ain't broke, don't fix it” means if it isn't broken, don't fix it. And what this means is if a situation is okay, or if a situation works, or if a situation is good enough, don't try to fix it. Don't try to change it. Don't try to improve it. In other words, if things are okay, there's no reason to worry about it. There's no reason to change it. That's what this expression means. And I think this is a pretty common expression. I think in the last week or so, I have heard people use this expression twice. So it is a good expression for you to know. “If it ain't broke, don't fix it.”