[CardinalSagehen]

Didn't realize the phrase only became popular in the '70s.

The thought may be Stone Age but the phrase 'if it ain't broke don't fix it', which sounds as though it might come from the Roosevelt or Truman era, is more recent than that. This one is widely attributed to T. Bert (Thomas Bertram) Lance, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget in Jimmy Carter's 1977 administration. He was quoted in the newsletter of the US Chamber of Commerce, Nation's Business, May 1977:

    Bert Lance believes he can save Uncle Sam billions if he can get the government to adopt a simple motto: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." He explains: "That's the trouble with government: Fixing things that aren't broken and not fixing things that are broken."

https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/if-i...ix-it.html

A bit OT, but interesting!  Based on a quick search of the website TheCARDboard.org, the earliest known use of the term "Shawgren" was by Publius in November 2014.  But the term didn't gain mass popularity until Stanford's offense stalled egregiously @ Northwestern on September 5, 2015, after which extensive hand-wringing and Shawgrenning occurred in fan circles.  This appears to be when Shawgren took on its current pejorative connotations. 

Note that if you search for "Shawgren" on this website, you receive the following suggestion: "You may have meant to search for chagrin." (italics mine)  I'm guessing this is due to solid phonetic matching by the underlying search engine, not due to teejers having hacked the source code of the site.  ;)

[CardinalSagehen]

Didn't realize the phrase only became popular in the '70s.

The thought may be Stone Age but the phrase 'if it ain't broke don't fix it', which sounds as though it might come from the Roosevelt or Truman era, is more recent than that. This one is widely attributed to T. Bert (Thomas Bertram) Lance, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget in Jimmy Carter's 1977 administration. He was quoted in the newsletter of the US Chamber of Commerce, Nation's Business, May 1977:

    Bert Lance believes he can save Uncle Sam billions if he can get the government to adopt a simple motto: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." He explains: "That's the trouble with government: Fixing things that aren't broken and not fixing things that are broken."

https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/if-i...ix-it.html

A bit OT, but interesting!  Based on a quick search of the website TheCARDboard.org, the earliest known use of the term "Shawgren" was by Publius in November 2014.  But the term didn't gain mass popularity until Stanford's offense stalled egregiously @ Northwestern on September 5, 2015, after which extensive hand-wringing and Shawgrenning occurred in fan circles.  This appears to be when Shawgren took on its current pejorative connotations. 

Note that if you search for "Shawgren" on this website, you receive the following suggestion: "You may have meant to search for chagrin." (italics mine)  I'm guessing this is due to solid phonetic matching by the underlying search engine, not due to teejers having hacked the source code of the site.  ;)