Meaning
A proverbial warning against meddling with something that already works adequately: leave well alone instead of 'improving' it and risking breakage. It is informal and colloquial in flavour, originally American but now widely understood, and is commonly said of systems, software, machinery, routines, and organizations. Informal and proverbial; often deployed as a conversation-stopping defence of the status quo, sometimes with a drawling mock-folksy effect. Regional use: American English, widely understood elsewhere.
Origin
The saying is an American colloquialism. It is popularly credited to Bert Lance, director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Jimmy Carter, who was quoted in Nation's Business in May 1977 saying the government could save billions by adopting the motto ('That's the trouble with government: fixing things that aren't broken and not fixing things that are broken'). The attribution of the popularization is secure, but The Phrase Finder located an earlier print appearance in the Texas paper the Big Spring Herald in December 1976, quoting 'the old Georgia farmer', and southern correspondents claim to recall it from decades before; no print record earlier than 1976 has been found, so oral currency before that remains unverified. The nonstandard 'broke' (rather than 'broken') marks the wording as deliberately folksy and American. BookBrowse's history likewise credits Lance in 1977 and treats the southern-farmer pedigree as the phrase's likely background.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- if it ain't broken, don't fix it
- if it works, don't fix it
- if it's not broke, don't fix it
Usage Examples
- The committee wanted to redesign the whole booking system, but the manager's view was simple: if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
- He resists every software update on principle, telling anyone who asks that if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
- If it ain't broke, don't fix it, she said, and voted to keep the old schedule exactly as it stood.