The Rule of Three is a principle that suggests three events or characters recur, and are more effective, than other numbers. People seem to respond to groups of three better than other clusters of items.
The military uses threes as a teaching tool for recruits.
During the 1950s, three-dimensional films were introduced that appeared to have height, length and width, and therefore looked real.
While attending picnics, I often participated in three-legged races that generally left me sitting on the ground along with my partner.
When I graduated from high school, I wore a three-piece suit.
I have been to hotels that offer a three-piece living room suite, which is a sofa and two matching chairs.
When my uncle Gene and I were rehabbing our basement, I learned that three-ply wood has three layers joined together.
Three quarters of something is three-fourths of it, so a three-quarter-length coat is between the length of a jacket and a full-length coat.
The Three R’s have always meant basic education — readin’, ritin’, and ‘rithmatic.
I learned how to ride a bicycle by first pedaling a three-wheeler.
There were three witches in Macbeth, but they were not called the “three bags full.”
During the late 1950s and the early 1960s, my mother’s favorite song was “Three Coins in the Fountain.” It took me a long time to get the lyrics from that song out of my head because she played it on the piano at least once a day for many months.
Thomas Jefferson wrote about “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness” when he penned the Declaration of Independence.
Stop, Look and Listen are words-to-the-wise for pedestrians.
The Three Musketeers by Dumas was a favorite book of mine when I was in eighth grade.
In Latin class, I learned Caesar’s words — “I came, I saw, I conquered” — when my class studied the Gallic Wars.
The “red, white and blue” refers to our flag, which is something every Tom, Dick and Harry knows.
When it was time for me to do my chores when I was a youngster, I had better be ready, willing and, above all, able.
My grandfather used to say that something we were discussing was as American as “baseball, hot dogs and apple pie.”
Our second grade music teacher, Miss Dunn, taught us to sing “Three Blind Mice.”
The zaniest slapstick trios I ever saw on television were the Three Stooges and the Marx Brothers.
The Three Wise Men are mentioned in the Gospel of St. Matthew, which is read at many Christmas church services.
Nursery rhymes tell us about the Three Little Pigs, the Three Bears and the Three Little Kittens.
A driving maneuver I learned at 16 years of age was the three-point turn, which is a method of turning a car around to face the other direction by moving forward across the road then backward in the opposite direction across the road and then forward again.
Oh, yes, three strikes and you are out.
Certainly there are many more examples of the Rule of Three; how many can you think of?
