Mark Liberman has omitted a major British contribution to redundancy from this spelling reform post. “[About] as much use as …” is found pleasantly unassertive by lovers of warm beer, and it also tongue-trips with a greater joie de vivre.
Our maths teacher (who had hair on the palms of his hands) used to tell me that I was about as much use as a fart in a spacesuit, thus failing miserably to anticipate the radical change that would take place in the nature of both fart and spacesuit in the 90s.
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