In "Promises, Promises," an adaptation of the screenplay of "The Apartment," by Billy Wilder and I. A. L. Diamond, Simon buffs up the dominant character of his sixties comedies: the trapped bourgeois soul who finds that almost everything he yearns for is worthless.
But, like dogs squabbling over a maggoty bone, the protagonists have failed to notice that the prize they are fighting for is worthless: overuse has denuded the language of progress of meaning.
For Paul, everything not immediately useful for salvation is worthless; what is worthless is not on the side of the good; therefore, it is allied with the bad.
One fax machine, for example, is worthless.
The crisis revealed what some people had long suspected: that quite a lot of the whiz-bang financial engineering that Wall Street relied on for profits was worthless.
Mr. Jones's Nautilus machines helped to bring strength training into the fitness mix, though he had little use for aerobic exercises, saying most were "worthless for any purpose".
"If my opinions are for sale, they are worthless as opinions" was how he would put it.
Setting goals for your teams are worthless without actually holding yourselves accountable to them.
"The struggle for our rights is worthless if it's indifferent to what's happening to people a kilometre from here.
