Disclaimer: There’s some question about whether the quotation I paraphrased did indeed originate with Voltaire.
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And is the one Arlo offers any more confidently from Voltaire?
Anyway, it’s a little hard to see how to apply it here. I think it could be directed at Janis. By requiring no crumbs at all, she may be undermining his cooperative step of at least locating them in the sink.
Mitch4 is correct. Arlo is doing his part to minimize mess in the house by eating over the sink. Janis is demanding ever more. His quoting this aphorism doesn’t really make sense, though.
As I interpret it, the issue is that people or companies will do nothing to resolve a problem because they don’t have the best solution. They’ll keep expending resources trying on finding the perfect path and, in the meantime, nothing gets done. Having spent years in the corporate world, I can assure you this happens. However, in this case, the “good enough” plan has already been implemented, reducing the presence of crumbs all over the house.Her request to improve the existing implementation by rinsing the crumbs out of the sink as well, isn’t the same as doing nothing while dithering.
I would also suggest that Arlo’s do-nothing “perfect” solution (not rinsing the crumbs) is the enemy of the “good”, which is rinsing the crumbs and ensuring Janis remains happy and gives him some of that sweet married-lady booty.
His best (eating over the sink rather than making a mess elsewhere) isn’t good enough for her and therefore he would have been better off not bothering?
I think Singapore Bill has it backwards. Arlo’s eating over the sink is good, rinsing out the crumbs afterward would be perfect.
Arlo: “No, but thanks for the offer.”
The trendy version of this is, “Perfection is the enemy of progress.” I’m pretty sure.
I think it is an unnecessary waste of water to rinse the crumbs. They are doing no harm in the sink, they can be flushed away as crummateral damage next time the sink is used for a more important project. So what Arlo has done is good enough, and the best or perfect that Janis wants is an extra waste of effort and precious resources.
This makes sense to me. The perfect can be the enemy of the good, not just by causing dithering, but demotivating someone to not bother with the good, since it’s “not good enough.”
He’s done something good: eating over the sink. But Janis is complaining anyway, wanting the best: eating over the sink, and rinsing away the crumbs. If he’s going to get complaints anyway, he might as well not bother. Next time, he might just eat at the couch.
I agree with DemetriosX in reply to SingaporeBill. Maybe the hangup here is that the judgements of best vs pretty-good need to be attributed to Janis, in Arlo’s interpretation. SingaporeBill, it seemed you might be trying to apply external judgements, ours basically or what really is best.
Padraig, when I Google “best is enemy of the good”, after the results about the origins there are some entries turning it backwards, as ‘Good is the enemy of great’ — sort of an anti-settling motto.
Hey anyone who can help — What is that tool, please, that some of you have used, from Google, for finding frequency in text corpora across years, of phrases and collocations?
It doesn’t do ngrams of length greater than 5, though.
Thanks much, Winter! Now that you provided it, I know I’ve seen references to Ngram; but probably blocked remembering it from fear of it being related to the Dianetics “engram”!
I’m with Winter Wallaby: by asking for more, Janis is inadvertently discouraging Arlo.
“They are doing no harm in the sink, . . . ”
Unless you live in tropical areas, where ‘Palmetto bugs’ (read: cockroaches) come from far & near for a smorgasbord like that. Heck, I found one in my outer bathroom (just sink and vanity, off my bedroom) this a.m.; there isn’t even any FOOD (crumbs or otherwise) to entice ’em there. And then there are ants. Everywhere, inside and out. Luckily, fire ants stay within their own mound, outside.
So, NO FOOD ITEMS are allowed to be uncovered anywhere, inside or out, including crumbs on the counter or in the sink. If I have a choice between a higher water bill or bugs large enough to put a harness and leash on, I’ll take the higher water bill, senkuveddymuch.
Andrea just gave the most eloquent reason to live in a state with a hard frost in winter :^)
Back on target, I like the Voltaire quote as a riposte to the desire that all things be optimized. Expedient beats optimal 90% of the time. It’s just recognizing *which* 10% needs further optimization!
“Andrea just gave the most eloquent reason to live in a state with a hard frost in winter :^)”
And the dogs only need heartworm and flea/tick preventative for half the year, she writes, coming in from swimming in the pool and the sunshine to check her email ‘-)
And here is a Dilbert commentary on the best/good maxim.
Comics I Don't Understand 
And is the one Arlo offers any more confidently from Voltaire?
Anyway, it’s a little hard to see how to apply it here. I think it could be directed at Janis. By requiring no crumbs at all, she may be undermining his cooperative step of at least locating them in the sink.
Apparently Voltaire at least quoted it from somewhere. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_is_the_enemy_of_good
Mitch4 is correct. Arlo is doing his part to minimize mess in the house by eating over the sink. Janis is demanding ever more. His quoting this aphorism doesn’t really make sense, though.
As I interpret it, the issue is that people or companies will do nothing to resolve a problem because they don’t have the best solution. They’ll keep expending resources trying on finding the perfect path and, in the meantime, nothing gets done. Having spent years in the corporate world, I can assure you this happens. However, in this case, the “good enough” plan has already been implemented, reducing the presence of crumbs all over the house.Her request to improve the existing implementation by rinsing the crumbs out of the sink as well, isn’t the same as doing nothing while dithering.
I would also suggest that Arlo’s do-nothing “perfect” solution (not rinsing the crumbs) is the enemy of the “good”, which is rinsing the crumbs and ensuring Janis remains happy and gives him some of that sweet married-lady booty.
His best (eating over the sink rather than making a mess elsewhere) isn’t good enough for her and therefore he would have been better off not bothering?
I think Singapore Bill has it backwards. Arlo’s eating over the sink is good, rinsing out the crumbs afterward would be perfect.
Arlo: “No, but thanks for the offer.”
The trendy version of this is, “Perfection is the enemy of progress.” I’m pretty sure.
I think it is an unnecessary waste of water to rinse the crumbs. They are doing no harm in the sink, they can be flushed away as crummateral damage next time the sink is used for a more important project. So what Arlo has done is good enough, and the best or perfect that Janis wants is an extra waste of effort and precious resources.
He probably gets grief too for not flushing when he pees: https://www.littlethings.com/reasons-not-to-flush/1 I hope no-one in California is currently flushing every single time.
This makes sense to me. The perfect can be the enemy of the good, not just by causing dithering, but demotivating someone to not bother with the good, since it’s “not good enough.”
He’s done something good: eating over the sink. But Janis is complaining anyway, wanting the best: eating over the sink, and rinsing away the crumbs. If he’s going to get complaints anyway, he might as well not bother. Next time, he might just eat at the couch.
I agree with DemetriosX in reply to SingaporeBill. Maybe the hangup here is that the judgements of best vs pretty-good need to be attributed to Janis, in Arlo’s interpretation. SingaporeBill, it seemed you might be trying to apply external judgements, ours basically or what really is best.
Padraig, when I Google “best is enemy of the good”, after the results about the origins there are some entries turning it backwards, as ‘Good is the enemy of great’ — sort of an anti-settling motto.
Hey anyone who can help — What is that tool, please, that some of you have used, from Google, for finding frequency in text corpora across years, of phrases and collocations?
I like Quote Investigator . . . so much trivia to learn . . .
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/06/01/defend-say/
Mitch4: The Google Ngram Viewer
It doesn’t do ngrams of length greater than 5, though.
Thanks much, Winter! Now that you provided it, I know I’ve seen references to Ngram; but probably blocked remembering it from fear of it being related to the Dianetics “engram”!
I’m with Winter Wallaby: by asking for more, Janis is inadvertently discouraging Arlo.
“They are doing no harm in the sink, . . . ”
Unless you live in tropical areas, where ‘Palmetto bugs’ (read: cockroaches) come from far & near for a smorgasbord like that. Heck, I found one in my outer bathroom (just sink and vanity, off my bedroom) this a.m.; there isn’t even any FOOD (crumbs or otherwise) to entice ’em there. And then there are ants. Everywhere, inside and out. Luckily, fire ants stay within their own mound, outside.
So, NO FOOD ITEMS are allowed to be uncovered anywhere, inside or out, including crumbs on the counter or in the sink. If I have a choice between a higher water bill or bugs large enough to put a harness and leash on, I’ll take the higher water bill, senkuveddymuch.
Andrea just gave the most eloquent reason to live in a state with a hard frost in winter :^)
Back on target, I like the Voltaire quote as a riposte to the desire that all things be optimized. Expedient beats optimal 90% of the time. It’s just recognizing *which* 10% needs further optimization!
“Andrea just gave the most eloquent reason to live in a state with a hard frost in winter :^)”
And the dogs only need heartworm and flea/tick preventative for half the year, she writes, coming in from swimming in the pool and the sunshine to check her email ‘-)
And here is a Dilbert commentary on the best/good maxim.