See computer says no on Wiktionary
{
"etymology_text": "From the British sketch comedy series Little Britain (2004), where it was the catchphrase of the character Carol Beer, a bank worker and later holiday rep and hospital receptionist, who dealt with customer enquiries by typing them into her computer and responding with computer says no.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "the computer says no",
"tags": [
"alternative"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "phr",
"head": "~says"
},
"expansion": "computer says no",
"name": "en-head"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "phrase",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "Entries with translation boxes",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "Pages with 1 entry",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "Pages with entries",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "Terms with Dutch translations",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "Terms with Russian translations",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
}
],
"examples": [
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
59,
75
]
],
"ref": "2018 May 8, Heather Stewart, “Immigration minister wants to end 'computer says no' culture at Home Office”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:",
"text": "The immigration minister has said she wants to change the “computer says no” culture of the Home Office, after being confronted with evidence that up to 1,000 highly skilled immigrants face being deported for minor errors on their tax forms.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Alluding to an attitude where decisions are based solely on the output of a computer system, apparently without using common sense and without any desire to help, especially in customer or public service."
],
"id": "en-computer_says_no-en-phrase-jjBoBywj",
"links": [
[
"common sense",
"common sense#English"
],
[
"customer",
"customer service#English"
],
[
"public service",
"public service#English"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(humorous) Alluding to an attitude where decisions are based solely on the output of a computer system, apparently without using common sense and without any desire to help, especially in customer or public service."
],
"related": [
{
"word": "jobsworth"
},
{
"word": "officialism"
},
{
"word": "Kafkaesque"
},
{
"word": "automation bias"
}
],
"tags": [
"humorous"
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "nl",
"lang": "Dutch",
"lang_code": "nl",
"sense": "popular phrase for an attitude in customer service",
"word": "computer zegt nee"
},
{
"code": "ru",
"lang": "Russian",
"lang_code": "ru",
"roman": "kompʹjuter govorit net",
"sense": "popular phrase for an attitude in customer service",
"word": "компьютер говорит нет"
}
],
"wikipedia": [
"Little Britain (TV series)"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-computer says no.wav",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/3/36/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-computer_says_no.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-computer_says_no.wav.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/3/36/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-computer_says_no.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-computer_says_no.wav.ogg"
}
],
"word": "computer says no"
}
{
"etymology_text": "From the British sketch comedy series Little Britain (2004), where it was the catchphrase of the character Carol Beer, a bank worker and later holiday rep and hospital receptionist, who dealt with customer enquiries by typing them into her computer and responding with computer says no.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "the computer says no",
"tags": [
"alternative"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "phr",
"head": "~says"
},
"expansion": "computer says no",
"name": "en-head"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "phrase",
"related": [
{
"word": "jobsworth"
},
{
"word": "officialism"
},
{
"word": "Kafkaesque"
},
{
"word": "automation bias"
}
],
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English humorous terms",
"English lemmas",
"English multiword terms",
"English phrases",
"English terms derived from fiction",
"English terms with quotations",
"Entries with translation boxes",
"Pages with 1 entry",
"Pages with entries",
"Terms with Dutch translations",
"Terms with Russian translations"
],
"examples": [
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
59,
75
]
],
"ref": "2018 May 8, Heather Stewart, “Immigration minister wants to end 'computer says no' culture at Home Office”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:",
"text": "The immigration minister has said she wants to change the “computer says no” culture of the Home Office, after being confronted with evidence that up to 1,000 highly skilled immigrants face being deported for minor errors on their tax forms.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Alluding to an attitude where decisions are based solely on the output of a computer system, apparently without using common sense and without any desire to help, especially in customer or public service."
],
"links": [
[
"common sense",
"common sense#English"
],
[
"customer",
"customer service#English"
],
[
"public service",
"public service#English"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(humorous) Alluding to an attitude where decisions are based solely on the output of a computer system, apparently without using common sense and without any desire to help, especially in customer or public service."
],
"tags": [
"humorous"
],
"wikipedia": [
"Little Britain (TV series)"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-computer says no.wav",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/3/36/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-computer_says_no.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-computer_says_no.wav.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/3/36/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-computer_says_no.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-computer_says_no.wav.ogg"
}
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "nl",
"lang": "Dutch",
"lang_code": "nl",
"sense": "popular phrase for an attitude in customer service",
"word": "computer zegt nee"
},
{
"code": "ru",
"lang": "Russian",
"lang_code": "ru",
"roman": "kompʹjuter govorit net",
"sense": "popular phrase for an attitude in customer service",
"word": "компьютер говорит нет"
}
],
"word": "computer says no"
}
Download raw JSONL data for computer says no meaning in All languages combined (3.0kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-12-31 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-12-20 using wiktextract (e97c820 and 9905b1f). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.
If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.