Third Time's the Charm

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again!

This is pretty good advice if you’re trying something where failure has a reasonably high likelihood of happening. If persistence is needed, this advice comes in really handy.

If you’re starting out writing on Substack, your first few essays or stories aren’t going to get a lot of traction. You might think they’re really good, but compared to the stuff you’ll make after you have a few trial runs, they’re not. You’ll get better over time, and your audience will grow.

Persistence is clearly important, but what about the phrase third time’s the charm? Why third, and why charm?

Let’s start with the word charm. In Latin, the word was carmen, and it included a broad category of short, memorable collections of words. Poems and songs were included alongside short legal phrases and prayers to gods.

Also included: magical spells.

Why did this rather fantastical item get lumped in with the other more mundane stuff? Because the Romans thought spells actually worked, at least to a limited degree.

It’s not like they thought they were Harry Potter or anything—it would be a mistake to assume that the Romans were any dumber than we are—but instead, they viewed incantations similarly to prayers: they might or might not make a difference, depending on how the forces of the universe felt that particular day.

You had to say these charms correctly, mind you. Getting the wording precisely right was important for all of these carmina. That’s the main thing they all had in common.

So, that’s why the third time is the charm. But why is it the third charm? Why not the second? We see “third time’s the charm” in print by the 1700s.

Because three indicates persisting through failure. If you try something one time and get discouraged and quit, that’s understandable—but it won’t get you very far in life. Sometimes, you have to attempt something a second time in order to get it right.

What happens if you fail that second time, though? Hopefully you try, then try again. That third time might just be the magical moment for you.

Okay, sure, but why not four? What’s so special about three?

If the advice was to try one more time after failure, you’d end up with two attempts, then hang up your hat. A third attempt might be necessary, and this lets you know that. Once you try that third attempt, maybe you’d quit, but you might also just keep going.

Maybe you’ll get lucky, though, and that third time really will be magical.

Maybe not, though. Three is one of those charmed numbers, though—it implies going after a thing multiple times, but it’s almost like three is a placeholder for multiplicity.

What do you think about the three thing? Why is the third time the charm?