2 # B ADD

[vakkotaur]

There's a cartoon where two mice, Hubie and Bertie, have eaten so much cheese they can't stand any more and decide that there's nothing more to live for and so go find a cat to end their lives. But the cat is suspicious of mice that want to be eaten and so refuses to eat them. The dog sees the result and tries to figure things out. The mice hate cheese. The mice want to be eaten. The cat refuse to eat the mice. And the cat, I think I recall, even wants the dog to attack. As the dog puts it, "It just don't add up!"

There are a couple interesting things. One is that I said the dog tries to figure things out. The other is the dog's comment. Both treat a situation as being something that can be analyzed numerically. Listening to the radio on the drive back to work this noon I heard someone use the line "It doesn't compute." without being at all a reference to actual, or even fictional, computing. This is seems an updated version of "It doesn't add up." I wonder, how common is the compute version now that computers are ubiquitous and is the add up version fading as people no longer do much addition themselves?

Comments

[timmowarner.livejournal.com]

I've often heard people use it with the fictional computing by putting on a robot voice and droning "Does not compute! Does not compute!"

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

Yeah. That one I've heard as well. But this struck me as not being that. It was used just like "It doesn't add up." has been used.

[jdm314.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it does seem to be equivalent to that expression, and the feeling you got from it probably indicates that that's how people are thinking of it. But I strongly suspect the origin is that sci-fi DOES NOT COMPUTE cliché, which traditionally was used for anything the computer or robot did not get, whether or not it had to do with math. See, mechanical minds can't see things in non-numerical terms. Rather like how Star Trek's Vulcans call anything they don't like "illogical." ;)

[vaeladven.livejournal.com]

To compute actually means to make a calculation. So, it can be said that the dog in that cartoon was computing, and could have said "It just don't compute!"

That aside, I can't really say whether the 'add up' version is fading. Never actually heard that, or the 'compute' version used. People around here just stick with the basics I guess... "It doesn't make sense", heh.

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

I'd expect "I'll email Joe about (blah)" as it says how Joe will be informed. At least that distinguishes between phone, fax, and email which could be useful info later. "Didn't Bob talk to you about (blah)?" "Bob? He never said a thing about it." "Huh."