As reliable as a Kalashnikov: a rant.

 Look, when one uses the formulae:

 x is like y

or

as x as y

then the whole point is that x does have to be quite like y. Otherwise, as I would have thought fairly obviously, the whole conceit falls to pieces.

A few years ago I read of legs like golfing umbrellas, and I am still trying to work out in which way legs might be like golfing umbrellas. Were they striped? Did they not bend at the knee? I just don't know.

Anyway, as I expect you know, these types of constructions are called similes, and the similarity between the words simile and similar is not coincidental.

Vladimir Putin is not a professional writer, but he does seem to have come up with a completely original way of messing up a simile. He's been trying to encourage the use of Russia's Sputnik V vaccine, which people worry might do them harm.

He described it as reliable as a Kalashnikov.

That may not have done much for the uptake of the Sputnik vaccine, but it gave me a laugh.

Word To Use Today: Putin. In Russian, put means way or road. So Putin means man of the road.

Kalashnikovs are believed to have killed more than a million people.