Pray, Mr Babbage

In last week's Law Society Gazette letter page under the title "Inefficient emails":-

"If only senders [of emails] would quote references, it would be easy for reception staff to print them out, attach them to the relevant file and deliver them for prompt attention."

It's at times like these when I can imagine how Charles Babbage may have felt when asked:-

"Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?"

As he responded at the time, 'I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.'