Word: grinding
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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...over two weeks during the midyear period almost every undergraduate is a "grind". He buys him an eye-shade, locks his study door, and with self-righteous ardor applies himself for long hours to his books. He forsakes his club, turns his back resolutely upon his telephone, and puts off answering his mail...
Unquestionably some of this is purely wasted time. But some of it, whether spent at the club or with some young lady, he would hesitate to call wasted, even from his new character as a "grind". To him it appears a definite part of a young man's development, a fact which the hallucination of youth allows him to appraise...
...will also admit that he does not like the life of a "grind". His own feeling of reaction after such periods of study shows him that to the normal young man such application is unnatural. He comes to the logical conclusion that while he may have wasted time away from his books, the "grind" is also wasting a good deal of valuable time over those same books...
Besides, there are plenty of really practical objections. No doubt they will be made by the opponents of the plan; everyone has some axe to grind, and if he wants to grind it badly enough, he will find numerous good and sufficient reasons why it ought to be ground. But unless all of the surface cars are going to be run under the surface--there must still be some space roped off for innocent passengers and others not directly interested in traffic dodging. Unless the tracks are moved there will be no more available space for driving, as long...
That he can be thus serene may be accounted for, of course, in two ways. When he takes up his pen he has no axe to grind, no literary "set" to placate, no flickering reputation to blow into a flame, and no disingenuous criticism to fear. And then there is that twinkle of the eye, that ability to "see things steadily and see them whole", which precludes his ever entering into the hurly-burly of purely temporary arenas. Critical judgement has long since discovered and frequently used the word which best describes his writings; it is the word "universal...