if the shoe fits, wear it If

If something applies to you, accept it. This expression is a version of an older term, if the cap fits, put it on, which origi- nally meant a fool’s cap and dates from the early eighteenth century. This version is rarely heard today. Its replacement by a shoe probably came about owing to the increased popularity of the Cinderella story, and indeed, an early appearance in print, in Clyde Fitch’s play The Climbers (1901), states, “If the slipper fits.”