student asking question

What is “exercise in futility”?

teacher

Native speaker’s answer

Rebecca

The word "exercise" here means to practice or train. "Futility" is an action that is useless and has no purpose. So an "exercise in futility" means to continue to do something that is pointless. In this case, he is referring to the continued action of throwing the stick in a game of fetch for dogs, which has no purpose.

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