While I agree that the GGGP's "I would think that physical work is less hard than mental work." statement sounds like he is dismissing the challenges required in doing the work, his examples are more focused on it being because it doesn't require specialization.

Many people won't catch that, so I think that your response to that is generally helpful. The point of my previous post was that I don't think it was necessary to say that you disagree about "easier" because the two of you are talking about two different definitions.