English Idiom: The daily grind
It’s the first of April! YAY! Spring is in the air, and that means that many newly graduated university students will be starting their new jobs.
Let me be one of the first to welcome them to the daily grind.
That’s right, the first month or so will be very exciting. After that a few years, things will start to get tedious. Then before you know it, you’ll be well into the daily routines of getting up in the morning, taking the train and working until the end of the day. Doesn’t it sound wonderful?
As far as I know, the term daily grind refers to the regular job that women had of using two stones to grind wheat into flour to make bread.
It appears that the daily grind took a few hours each day and was very tedious. Therefore, we still use the term today to refer to tedious, everyday work.
Imagine doing that every day? In English, we do have an expression the best thing since sliced bread.
Perhaps it should be changed to the best thing since machine-ground flour. I bet people were delighted when machine-ground flour was invented.