McGonagall in today's Daily Buzzword

[Mhochberg at aol.com]

This is in my email each today. Today's emailed word featured  Professor 
McGonagall.
 
What is the Daily Buzzword for July 9?
elbow grease   \EL-boh-GREESS\  noun

What does it mean?
: forceful effort  in doing physical labor

How do you use it?
"You will be  polishing the silver in the trophy room with Mr.
Filch," said Professor  McGonagall. "And no magic, Weasley --
elbow grease." (J. K. Rowling, _Harry  Potter and the Chamber
of Secrets_)

Are you a word wiz?
How  old do you think the term "elbow grease" is?

A. Very old; medieval  laborers erecting castles probably used it.
B. Old; Pilgrims who built  the settlement at Plymouth might have
heard it.
C. Fairly new; it  was first used during the construction of the
Panama Canal.
D. Very  new; NASA engineers coined it while working on the  Space
Shuttle.

Answer: 
The Pilgrims certainly labored hard  to build their settlement
at Plymouth, and they may have used the term "elbow  grease"
to describe their labor. "Elbow grease" first made its
appearance  on the English scene back in the late 1600s, where
it was immediately used as  a humorous euphemism for the sweat
produced by hard work. It later came to  mean "effort in doing
labor," the meaning we give it today. "Elbow grease"  tends to
appear in more casual writing. For more formal writing,  you'd
probably be better of with a word like "effort," "exertion,"
or  "pains."

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