It’s a good rule.

I think that’s why this sort of phrase never made much sense to me, because in the same sense that the broken clock is right, a working clock with an offset (technically all of them) is almost never right (as you mention). Maybe it extends the metaphor, though, because while the working clock is never completely accurate, it’s much more useful by being closer to the truth the vast majority of the time.

And the fruit’s name is different from other countries’ names for it because “a naranj” was misheard as “an orange” and it stuck. Yellow-red wasn’t much adopted, though it did exist. Such is language, what a fun collective hallucination.