An Irish-English I'm not familiar with

franc 91

Not being Irish and not having lived in Ireland, could someone explain what you mean by a 'grind' exactly? - it sounds as if it could be painful but apparently it's educational.
GRMA
Franc

Jamie Starr

A "grind" is a term used for an intensive, after-school study session which is over-seen by a teacher or someone who has expertise in that subject area. For example, if a teenager is struggling at school with French, they might pay a university student majoring in French to help them study areas of the language they are having trouble with, outside of school hours.

So grinds are painful, but they are also educational (usually!).

franc 91

Thanks a lot for that (I mistakenly missed out the word 'word' in the question - sorry about that) but it does seem to be specifically Irish, I haven't come across it anywhere else before now.

Jamie Starr

Yeah, I don't think it's used anywhere else. The equivalent in other countries would be "after-school tutoring". Trust Irish people to condense that into something that makes no sense! I've just noticed you're French, so I suppose "soutien scolaire" would be the equivalent. D'habitude, les grinds sont fait á la domicile d'un etudiant, mais le temps en temps ils se produisent á l'école avec leur professeur. Je m'excuse pour les francais, il est clair que j'aurais du prendre un 'grind'! Cela sont une practique/excercice(?) pour moi!

franc 91

It sounds to me that it must be pretty intensive teaching and learning rather than just simply helping out with someone's homework - (dàla an scéil, is Albanach agus Sasanach mé, ach tàim i mo chonai sa Fhrainc)

Yakuza

I expect it's derived from the term "grinding away" - in that it's an intensive, often repetitive, task that needs to be undertaken in order to produce a desired result (i.e. getting a good mark on an exam!).

Ellis Dee

It is not exclusively Irish, as the phrase "the daily grind" (i.e. daily hard work) is used elsewhere as well.:):)

See noun definition 4 here:
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/grind

franc 91

Yes the daily grind, I'm all too familiar with, but it's when I see that people here on this forum are willingly looking for a grind - well it did make me wonder what it was they wanted exactly - if you see what I mean.

Jamie Starr

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83j4ICes2i4

MathsManiac

Well, someone told me about a guy who got into a whole pile of trouble when he wrapped up a phone call to his American girlfriend by saying: "I have to go now; I'm giving a girl a grind." :eek: She blew a fuse and hung up.

(I've no idea whether this tale is true!)

getz

Yakuza wrote: »

I expect it's derived from the term "grinding away" - in that it's an intensive, often repetitive, task that needs to be undertaken in order to produce a desired result (i.e. getting a good mark on an exam!).

true mine was a dog,i had to lie back and think of england