3 adjectives to describe threshings

Mahaffy ('Greek Life and Thought') holds the whole contest over the crown to be mere academic threshing of old straw, the fundamental issues being obsolete by the rise of a new world under Alexander.

Mahaffy ('Greek Life and Thought') holds the whole contest over the crown to be mere academic threshing of old straw, the fundamental issues being obsolete by the rise of a new world under Alexander.

But violent threshings and whacks from the tree-top absolutely assured me that I was neither dreaming nor out of my head.

3 adjectives to describe  threshings