alt Hacker News> This is the coolest thing on HN that I've seen in a minute.
Off-topic, but what is up with the increased use of the phrase "in a minute", presumably to mean "in a long time", lately?
I've only started encountering it in the past year.
Did it get popularized by some celebrity, tv show, influencers, etc?
Replies
It's been around in slang for a few years with a few variants, e.g. "I haven't seen her in a hot minute." I think it's just filtered into wider cultural vernacular.
I had not heard it before (or if I did I did not interpret it correctly, eg if one told me "see you in a minute" I would interpret it as "see you in a bit".
But there is this podcast discussing it in 2021, and it comes from black community slang from 70s (which is where most slang I encounter comes from). And these terms take a while to catch up usually, but it seems it was already circulating more broadly since 2000s.
Scarlett Johansson says, “See you in a minute" in Avengers: Endgame.
This phrase has been around for years, I know because it has always infuriated me.
They took a well-defined unit of time, which is relatively short, and made it mean “some unknown but very long period of time”.
So frustrating. /oldmanyellsatcloud
it's been around. I more commonly see it as "been a minute!" when you see someone you haven't seen in a good while.
seems like you know what you're talking about 5k% increase starting in July this year
https://trends.google.com/explore?q=I%27ve%20seen%20in%20a%2...