It Will Never Catch On/Literature: Difference between revisions

▲** In one scene in ''[[Discworld/Witches Abroad|Witches Abroad]]'', the witches discuss whether they could fly people about on a "really big broom" in a manner reminiscent of commercial airline travel, alluding to the names of several [[Real Life|Roundworld]] airlines in the process. Naturally, they decide it'd never catch on.

▲** [[Mad Scientist]] Leonard of Quirm has developed sticky notes, espresso (or "very fast coffee", as he calls it), and the bicycle, among other things, but is never quite sure if the devices he invents will catch on. Leonard of Quirm tends to do this most often with his weaponry designs. He will often devise a weapon capable of annihilating whole armies or destroying mountains, but is naive enough to believe that no one would build or use such a destructive weapon.

▲*** He seems to be learning, however; in ''[[Discworld/Jingo|Jingo]]'' he designs an underwater war machine then reconsiders and destroys the design... but only after Nobby Nobbs has spent nearly the entire book pointing out to him the ways it could be used in war.

▲*** Leonard also invents an encryption machine (at Vetinari's request) which he calls something long and convoluted.<ref>Engine for the Neutralizing of Information by the Generation of Miasmic Alphabets</ref> The initials of its name work out to Enigma, a real-world encryption engine used by the Germans in [[WW 2]]. Leonard's inventions are brilliant, but the ''names'' never catch on. In the same vein, he calls the previously mentioned ''underwater war machine'' affectionately ''the boat'', in lieu of calling it the Going-Under-The-Water-Safely Device. He points out, that he came up with the convoluted name after considering that ''the boat'' is ''sub''mersed in a ''marine'' environment.

▲** Rincewind in ''[[Discworld/The Last Continent|The Last Continent]]'': "What kind of idiot puts beer in tins?" Also the practice of hanging corks from a hatbrim to keep flies off. People he meets disbelieve that this could work, because surely someone would have thought of it by now.

▲** Rincewind in ''[[Discworld/Sourcery|Sourcery]]'': "[[Arabian Nights|Telling stories in a harem]]? It's not bloody normal! It'll never catch on!"