Meaning of 話になんない


I have a quote from this anime, FLCL: 「とにかくさ、バット振んなきゃ話になんないよ」. In the official
translation it's translated as "nothing can happen until you swing the bat".

Now my japanese is pretty rusty, as I haven't used it in five years. I
understand the meaning of the first part (とにかくさ、バット振んなきゃ) and that seems to
match the translation correctly. But I don't understand how does 話になんない
translate to "nothing can happen". Any explanation is welcome.




`話になんない`=`話にならない`

Literally you could translate `話にならない` as "won't become a story". However, as
a phrase it generally has two meanings:

  1. Not worth discussing; be beneath mention; out of the question; unthinkable.
  2. Be pointless (waste of time) trying to discuss the matter with smb.

So, the quoted phrase could be translated more literally as "Anyway, there's
nothing to talk about unless you swing the bat". Depending on the context,
"nothing can happen" is not a bad equivalent.




If we uncontract 振んなきゃ, we find that it's undergone these three contractions:

[code]

    　　振らなけ **れば**　　→　　振らなけ **りゃ**　　　　(eba → ya)
    　　振らな **けりゃ**　　→　　振らな **きゃ**　　　　　(erya → ya)
    　　振 **ら** なきゃ　　　→　　振 **ん** なきゃ　　　　　(/ran/ → /rn/ → /Nn/)
[/code]

In other words, the full form of 振んんなきゃ means "If [you] don't swing [the
bat]". That's conditional, though, so something should come after it; and if
nothing _does_ come after it, we can infer that the rest of the sentence has
been deleted:

> 振らなければ **ならない**

...which is why なきゃ on its own can have that meaning. However, in this case
you _cannot_ infer that ならない has been deleted, because it follows as part of
the rest of the sentence. In this case, the consequence of not swinging is
話になんない. Let's uncontract that, as well:

[code]

    　　話にな **ら** ない　　　→　　話にな **ん** ない　　　　　(/ran/ → /rn/ → /Nn/)
[/code]

In this case, 話 means "a topic of discussion" / "something to talk about"; see
[sense 3 at 大辞泉](http://kotobank.jp/word/%E8%A9%B1). So the phrase 話にならない
means "[won't] become something to talk about". See also [the entry for the
phrase itself in
大辞林](http://kotobank.jp/word/%E8%A9%B1%E3%81%AB%E3%81%AA%E3%82%89%E3%81%AA%E3%81%84),
which says (among other things):

> 話題にする価値もない

...which I would translate as "to have no value as a topic of discussion".

Put it all together:

> とにかくさ、バット **を** 振 **ら** な **ければ** 話にな **ら** ない

As you can see, it doesn't _literally_ mean "nothing can happen". I would
translate it somewhat literally as follows:

> Anyway, if [you] don't swing the bat, it won't be worth talking about.

