Word: uselessness
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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Americans accustomed to use the British mails know that a letter is not likely to reach its destination if its envelope contains less than five or six lines of addressing. Thus, it is useless to write simply "No. 8, King's Lane, Queen's Court, London." There may be two King's Lanes each a block long; the Postoffice will take no chances...
Giving him a hypodermic of strychnine at best was a useless procedure. It may have done him harm. All the man needed was air. Had it been at hand, inhalation of a mixture of oxygen and carbonic acid might have been called for. At any rate, that is what should be found on ambulances today. In all probability this fireman did not need even that, since he does not seem to have been much knocked out. The use of ammonia might have been justified, particularly after the man was moved well away from the smoke, but even it is doubtful...
After several months of negotiation, the Shipping Board finally shook hands and said: "It's a bargain." Two hundred of its nearly useless vessels tied up here and there along the Eastern waterfront of the U. S. were sold. Those who shook hands (figuratively) and closed the bargain with the Shipping Board were...
...beat him without risking far more than he, Abd-el-Krim, thinks they will. This attitude is accounted for by the comparative security which his steep mountains provide him. Troops cannot be moved across them except through winding passes which the Riffian tribesmen dominate. Artillery and bombs are almost useless; for they cannot remove mountains of rock. But against the attackers the tribesmen bring to bear all manner of weapons from cannon to big stones which they dynamite down on to the enemy...
...That it was "useless to pretend that she was not illiterate." To this Mr. Moore replied that spelling did not matter and that bad spelling was very common among prominent people...