Academic, archival research in which menial drudgery take the form of slogging through (or dredging) all sorts of uninteresting stuff intending to find, say, a laundry list proving that Einstein or Michelangelo or Barbra Streisand was really a woman, but which never yields such a nugget of inspiration.
Larry failed to proved Beatrix Potter gave birth to Harry, so his afternoon of searching in the Hall of Records was pointless dredgery.
by Robert Belton September 11, 2007