grind, grinding, dire, morass. There is so much I would delight in rediscovering. But I can’t find what matters in the morass. I’ve given up on trying.

Gmail’s promise — vast storage mediated by powerful search tools — became the promise of virtually everything online. According to iCloud, I have more than 23,000 photos and almost 2,000 videos resting somewhere on Apple’s servers. I have tens of thousands of songs liked somewhere in Spotify. How much is jotted down in my Notes app? How many conversations do I have stored in Messages, in WhatsApp, in Signal, in Twitter and Instagram and Facebook DMs? There is so much I loved in those archives. There is so much I would delight in rediscovering. But I can’t find what matters in the morass. I’ve given up on trying.

The Washington Post leads with a look at Ohio's dire need for an infusion of federal funds. After accruing a $7.3 billion budget deficit over the last two years, the governor says that the state's only way out of its economic morass is through federal funding from a planned stimulus package from president-elect Barack Obama.


Lives of Grinding Poverty, Untouched by China’s Boom
By HOWARD W. FRENCH
China has moved more people out of poverty than any other country in recent decades, but places like southern Henan Province still remain destitute.

Definition

morass 
noun [C usually singular]
1 something that is extremely complicated and difficult to deal with and makes any progress almost impossible:
The morass of rules and regulations is delaying the start of the project.

2 LITERARY an area of soft wet ground in which it is easy to get stuck





grind
n.

1. The act of grinding.
2. A crunching or grinding noise.
3. A specific grade or degree of pulverization, as of coffee beans: drip grind.
4. Informal. A laborious task, routine, or study: the daily grind.
5. Informal. A student who works or studies excessively.
6. Slang. An erotic rotation of the pelvis.

• 名
• 1. （臼で）ひくこと、すり減らすこと、磨くこと、研磨｛けんま｝、粉の細かさ
• 2. がり勉学生、一生懸命勉強｛いっしょう けんめい べんきょう｝しなければならない科目｛かもく｝
• 3. 難しくてつまらないこと、単調｛たんちょう｝でつらい仕事｛しごと｝
• 4. 〈性俗〉腰を振り回すこと、性行為｛せいこうい｝、セックス、性交｛せいこう｝

grinding 形容痛
A dear friend has been battling cancer for a decade or more. Through a grinding mix of chemotherapy, radiation and all the other necessary indignities of oncology, he has lived on, despite dire prognoses to the contrary.

Grinding

a. & n.

from Grind.

Grinding frame, an English name for a cotton spinning machine. -- Grinding mill. (a) A mill for grinding grain. (b) A lapidary's lathe.
Webster 1913 Dictionary edited by Patrick J. Cassidy


grinding Show phonetics
adjective LITERARY
grinding poverty when people are extremely poor over a long period

dire 
adjective
1 very serious or extreme:
These people are in dire need of help.
He gave a dire warning that an earthquake was imminent.
This decision will have dire consequences for local people.

2 INFORMAL very bad:
I thought that film was dire!