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11:03 PM
@Cerberus He exercised it.
 
Exercised the grease?
dubious look
What is elbow grease for anyway, normally?
Is it what vets use to inspect cows?
 
Elbow grease is an idiom for working hard at manual labour. It is a figure of speech for humorously indicating nothing else but manual work is required. It is sometimes reported in the form of a snipe hunt, a prank where an apprentice or recruit is sent on an errand to retrieve "elbow grease" by his supervisor. The prank was used in the web series Red vs. Blue where two of the Red soldiers tell their new recruit to go fetch "elbow grease and headlight fluid" from the store. Their prank backfires when the recruit instead asks for the enemy's flag from the enemy's recruit, mistaking the other base...
I'm not sure that ironing was the object of the exercise. If I used a laundry service, I'd prefer they didn't hike my clothes up a cliff before ironing.
 
Ah, I didn't know it was from a prank.
I've heard the term before, of course, but I never knew its origin.
 
@Cerberus Neither did I :) .
 
@Lawrence Why not?
It's a nice place to iron.
 
11:13 PM
@Cerberus It'd be awfully hard to keep it in good nick on the way back down.
I'm also not fond of elbow grease as a lubricant on the iron.
 
11:40 PM
@Lawrence That's a little too incredible.
I mean the existence of such a prank, sure I can buy that. That it's the first time an idiom was used though?
Wait, no, it's not actually claiming that.
 
@Lawrence Perhaps a télépherique could be used.
Un téléphérique (ou téléférique) est un moyen de transport par câble aérien. Dans le langage commun, le téléphérique représente une remontée mécanique équipée de cabines de grande capacité desservant un sommet généralement difficile d'accès. En France, au sens réglementaire, il désigne tous les types de téléportés, à savoir, toutes les catégories de transports par câble disposant de véhicules aériens, comme les télésièges ou encore les télécabines. Techniquement, il désigne une catégorie de transport par câble à construction dite « bicâble » : les fonctions « porter » et « tracter » emploient des...
 
nGrams first attests the phrase in 1806, but the earliest book I can find on Google Books is in 1814, though it's used in precisely the manner I'ld expect.
Well okay, I wouldn't expect a hyphen but semantically, I mean.
 

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