Gradgrindian
English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]From Gradgrind + -ian, name of a pedantic character in Charles Dickens' novel Hard Times.
Adjective
[edit]Gradgrindian (comparative more Gradgrindian, superlative most Gradgrindian)
- Having a soulless devotion to facts and figures; inflexibly utilitarian.
- Synonym: Gradgrindish
- 2006 November 13, “Winners must be facts-obsessed in pursuit for truth”, in Financial Times:
- But today's winning businesses are positively Gradgrindian in their pursuit of the truth.
- 2016 February 28, John Old, “The EU refendum: Europe’s antidote to alienation and scapegoating is hope”, in The Guardian[1], →ISSN:
- Whether one favours a Gradgrindian Thatcherism that removes all worker rights, or a Corbynista fantasy of wholesale nationalisation, we will find these are impossible, given the reach of the Brussels acquis.
- 2018 February 16, Peter Bradshaw, “I’ve never known my times tables. Frankly, who needs them?”, in The Guardian[2], →ISSN:
- But I have never quite got my head around my times tables, which I think are a Gradgrindian chanting fetish periodically revived by politicians who, if they are honest with themselves, have never really needed times tables either.
Usage notes
[edit]Sometimes used without the initial capital.