The View From Carnegie 210

I came across an entry on Language Log by Mark Liberman (2004) that talks about the differences in some phrases that German and English speakers use. He says that German speakers tend to use phrases starting with "superfluous as..." or "unnecessary as...", while English speakers are more likely to use phrases beginning with "useless as...". Even though English speakers migh use "superfluous" or "unnecessary" phrases, Liberman claims that the entire phrases are usually either idiosyncratic or borrowed. Some examples are:

superfluous as a frog's croaks [Indian English; Hindi or Urdu?]
superfluous as a prostate gland [French; quote from Clemenceau about the office of the presidency]
superfluous as a typewriter
superfluous as a bicycle for a fish
unnecessary as a well is to a village on the banks of a river
unnecessary as a glass of water on Noah's Ark

useless as teats/tits on a boar (hog)
useless as teats/tits on a bull

I thought this was interesting because it's not something that we specifically discussed in class, but it shows some differences between languacultures. Phrases like these could be richpoints because they might be understand by one languaculture but not another.