There's a scene in a movie -- I believe it's The Money Trap, though, as I've not seen it, I'm not sure -- where the somewhat exasperated lead female character says to the lead male 'You were very nearly late!' To which he replies 'There's a phrase for that -- it's called on time' .
My wife has a tendency to slip on guesses of when something will occur. If she thinks it'll happen at 10AM -- for example, today, when she guessed that her sister would stop by around 10AM -- it'll likely happen at 10:30. Left to her own devices, it'll be earlier -- say, 10:10 or so -- but this particular sister is notoriously bad in her time estimates. If she says she'll leave her home at 9 and be at your home by 10, she'll leave her home about 9:30, stop three places, and be at yours around 11. Or perhaps a bit later. My wife told me once that once of the nicest things another sister said to her was the observation that while she might not make it when she said she would, when she said that she was ready, she really was -- unlike the sister who's coming today, who has been known to say 'I'm ready - I just have to take a shower and get dressed. And put a stamp on those envelopes. And...'
I'm more in the other direction. If I have to be somewhere at 10, and I know that in anything short of a maelstorm I will take 30 minutes to get there, I'll leave about twenty five after nine. Well, perhaps twenty after. And if its really important that I be there, I might leave at 9. The number of times I've sat in the parking lot, waiting for the doors to open, is legion.
There's a phrase for that. It's called Being A Little Early.
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