Can Herc Come to My House?

Feb. 16 is interesting in my word-of-the-day calendar:

 

Augean stable - a condition or place marked by great accumulation of filth or corruption

Used in a sentence: Ulysses S. Grant's presidency was marred by his failure to clean out the Augean stables of his own administration.

 

I'd never even heard this phrase before, but I like it, especially because they chose it for Presidents Day.  (By the way, Augean is pronounced with a 'je' sound, as though Augean would rhyme with 'dodgy and'.)  Here's their description of the origin of the phrase:

 

"The mythical Augeas, king of Elis, kept great stables that held three thousand oxen and had not been cleaned for 30 years before the job was finally assigned to Hercules, who caused two rivers to run through the stables.  The word 'Augean' is also sometimes used by itself with the meaning 'extremely difficult and usually distasteful.' We can refer to 'Augean tasks,' 'Augean labor,' or even 'Augean clutter.'"