three time's a charm

[Mark A. Mandel]

I don't think I've ever heard it worded that way. But my maternal
grandmother always said "Third time's the charm". She was born in 1889
(in NYC, of Russian-Jewish immigrant parents, though I've never thought
of this as a Jewish expression), and it would have been the 1950's and
60's when I (first) heard this expression from her. I sometimes say it
too.

(By the way, "three time's a charm" doesn't make much sense
orthographically. "Three time is a charm"? I'd drop the apostrophe, even
if this spelling does reflect the way you've heard it said, which I'd
interpret as coming from "Three times is a charm".)

-- Mark A. Mandel