For the English version, I was translating the phrase "you’re as good a copywriter (referring to d’Didactible) as a sieve made out of a dog's tail." I was translating and translating, and then I got to thinking—twice, actually.
First, what's so bad about a sieve made of a dog's tail? It sounds absurd, sure, but a sieve isn't a radio receiver you're supposed to listen to; it's a sieve! You can make a sieve out of sheepskin—remember the Golden Fleece—so why not a dog?! And what if you take a large dog, one with a thick undercoat, and do it when there are no vegans, dog lovers, child rights activists, or crazy cat ladies around... although the latter don't count, they only care about cats, and I haven't heard of a cat-tail sieve. So, what if you take a dog pelt and head off to the Aldan river to pan for some gold—why not? Buy an ATV, pack it with gold pans, classifiers, special sluice boxes, suction dredges, a rocker box... what else should we take? Almost forgot: a separation magnet to sift out the magnetic iron ore that looks like fine gold and only annoys you while panning. Anyway, what if you set up the rocker box on a gold-bearing creek, and instead of burlap, you line the bottom with that very same dog pelt with tails? And then you pull a scoop shovel out of the trunk, just to make it easier to literally shovel money?
I got to thinking for the second time when I was looking for some idiomatic expression that matched the meaning as closely as possible. And since I had already realized that a "dog-tail sieve" is pure nonsense, I never found a perfect translation. There is no romance in the English language, judge for yourselves: as useful as a chocolate teapot! They have a lot of this "As useful as" stuff: as a bicycle for a fish, as an ashtray on a motorbike, as pockets in underpants, as a waterproof teabag... or here's another one: as useful as a calculator that only shows prime numbers.
There's irony, there's sarcasm, but there's no romance!
I tossed these idioms into the text, and immediately felt the urge to go over them point by point. I'll skip the fish, but an ashtray on a motorcycle? If you approach it creatively, paint a picture of all its advantages—especially when parked—and pitch the idea on Kickstarter (the crowdfunding platform, not the bike pedal), then maybe not a scoop, but a trenching shovel from your backpack might come in handy to rake in the cash, right?
About pockets in underpants: a very, very necessary thing. Where else are you supposed to put your hotel room key, or a handful of coins for beach ice cream, pastries, a beer for yourself, and a margarita for the lady, after all? As for the calculator—that's just a brilliant idea, any mathematician would bite your arm off for it...
I didn't have time to think about the waterproof teabag, because I got carried away by the idea of a new research project: finding English idioms for "bite your arm off.»