"It's been a minute"

[Lewis]

In recent years (10?) I've heard the phrase "it's been a minute",
meaning "it's been a long time", with increasing frequency. I don't know
where it came from or how old it is, but I am certainly hearing it more
than I used to.

It is usually used in the sense of meaning that something is happening
now that hasn’t happened for a long time, rather than something that was
simply a long time in the past.

For example, a recent conversation:

"Hey, haven't seen you recently." (it's been a decade or so)
"Yeah, long time no."
"It's been a minute."

Ideas?

--
Forgive your enemies, but remember their names.

[Ken Blake]

We must travel in very different circles. I've never heard it.

If I had to guess where it came from, I'd guess that some TV sitcom
character says it and that it's copied from him.


--
Ken

[Quinn C]

* Lewis:

It's the title of an NPR podcast, but I don't think that is the origin
of its spread.

It reminds me, however, that I also increasingly hear of things that
happened or existed "for a hot second", which isn't as long as the
above, but can be a few years, e.g. in the case of a fashion trend.
Apparently, there's also a "hot minute", but I don't remember hearing
that.

--
If you kill one person, you go to jail; if you kill 20, you go
to an institution for the insane; if you kill 20,000, you get
political asylum. -- Reed Brody, special counsel
for prosecutions at Human Rights Watch

[Lewis]

In message <i31jjg...@mid.individual.net> Ken Blake <k...@invalidemail.com> wrote:
> On 12/5/2020 1:02 AM, Lewis wrote:
>> In recent years (10?) I've heard the phrase "it's been a minute",
>> meaning "it's been a long time", with increasing frequency. I don't know
>> where it came from or how old it is, but I am certainly hearing it more
>> than I used to.
>>
>> It is usually used in the sense of meaning that something is happening
>> now that hasn’t happened for a long time, rather than something that was
>> simply a long time in the past.
>>
>> For example, a recent conversation:
>>
>> "Hey, haven't seen you recently." (it's been a decade or so)
>> "Yeah, long time no."
>> "It's been a minute."
>>
>> Ideas?

> We must travel in very different circles.

Yes, a lot of the people I talk to are decades younger than I. My gaming
group is all mid 20s to mid 30s but for me, and a handful of my closest
friends are all about 35.

> I've never heard it.

> If I had to guess where it came from, I'd guess that some TV sitcom
> character says it and that it's copied from him.

I was wondering if it was related to "a new york minute" but I can't
find any connection, and the meanings are opposite.

<https://episystechpubs.com/2020/07/02/editors-corner-its-been-a-minute/>






--
M is for MAUDE who was swept out to sea
N is for NEVILLE who died of ennui

[Lewis]

In message <fdmzhruq1ues$.d...@mid.crommatograph.info> Quinn C <lispa...@crommatograph.info> wrote:
> * Lewis:

>> In recent years (10?) I've heard the phrase "it's been a minute",
>> meaning "it's been a long time", with increasing frequency. I don't know
>> where it came from or how old it is, but I am certainly hearing it more
>> than I used to.
>>
>> It is usually used in the sense of meaning that something is happening
>> now that hasn’t happened for a long time, rather than something that was
>> simply a long time in the past.
>>
>> For example, a recent conversation:
>>
>> "Hey, haven't seen you recently." (it's been a decade or so)
>> "Yeah, long time no."
>> "It's been a minute."
>>
>> Ideas?

> It's the title of an NPR podcast, but I don't think that is the origin
> of its spread.

> It reminds me, however, that I also increasingly hear of things that
> happened or existed "for a hot second", which isn't as long as the
> above, but can be a few years, e.g. in the case of a fashion trend.
> Apparently, there's also a "hot minute", but I don't remember hearing
> that.

A hot minute used to be more common, but it meant fast. I think of it as
being related to MTV, but I am not sure it's actually that old.

(I mean MTV in the sense of the time period MTV actually showed music
videos non-stop, not whatever MTV is now.)



--
Love is strange and you have to learn to take the crunchy with the
smooth I suppose

[RH Draney]

On 12/5/2020 3:48 PM, Quinn C wrote:
> * Lewis:
>
>> In recent years (10?) I've heard the phrase "it's been a minute",
>> meaning "it's been a long time", with increasing frequency. I don't know
>> where it came from or how old it is, but I am certainly hearing it more
>> than I used to.
>>
>> It is usually used in the sense of meaning that something is happening
>> now that hasn’t happened for a long time, rather than something that was
>> simply a long time in the past.
>>
>> For example, a recent conversation:
>>
>> "Hey, haven't seen you recently." (it's been a decade or so)
>> "Yeah, long time no."
>> "It's been a minute."
>>
>> Ideas?
>
> It's the title of an NPR podcast, but I don't think that is the origin
> of its spread.
>
> It reminds me, however, that I also increasingly hear of things that
> happened or existed "for a hot second", which isn't as long as the
> above, but can be a few years, e.g. in the case of a fashion trend.
> Apparently, there's also a "hot minute", but I don't remember hearing
> that.

I've heard people described as a "hot mess", but I can never remember if
that's supposed to be good or bad....r

[Ken Blake]

Don't mix it up with "hot shit."


--
Ken

[Quinn C]

* RH Draney:

We'll discuss this hot-button issue on tomorrow's show!

--
Quinn C
My pronouns are they/them
(or other gender-neutral ones)

[Tony Cooper]

On Sun, 6 Dec 2020 08:11:46 -0700, Ken Blake <k...@invalidemail.com>
wrote:

I've never understood that usage. It's usually something like "He
thinks he's hot shit" with the intent of saying "He's not as
important/handsome/talented/skillful as he thinks he is".

Who would want to be considered to be hot shit?

--

Tony Cooper Orlando Florida

[Ken Blake]

Beats the shit out of me.



--
Ken

[Quinn C]

* Tony Cooper:

Maybe the same type of person who actually liked their achievements
classified as "awesome" or "terrific" in the past.

[Ross Clark]

Your example sounds typical to me. It's used of others
(?I'm hot shit ?I think I'm hot shit)
and is subtly derogatory -- he thinks he is but he's not.

I think the "shit" here is the one that substitutes for "stuff", isn't
it? In a politer register one could use "hot stuff" in the same way.

[Peter T. Daniels]

But "Hot stuff!" is a compliment (in less enlightened days) for the
dame, bimbo, or chick who takes your fancy.

[Lewis]

Idioms don't have to make sense, and most do not. Why would someone want
to be a "bad ass"?

> Who would want to be considered to be hot shit?

Because "hot shit" doesn't mean hot+shit.

--
'Now what?' it said. IT'S UP TO YOU. IT'S ALWAYS UP TO YOU.
--Maskerade

[Lewis]

Hot stuff mean attractive and desirable (or it did last time i heard it)
and applies to members of the opposite sex (or the sex one is attracted
to). Hot shit is not at all the same.


--
"I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it." -
Groucho Marx

[Ross Clark]

But "hot shit" in Tony's example means
"important/handsome/talented/skillful". It's just that we use it only
when denying a person's estimate of their own qualities. Tony's
puzzlement was precisely at the use of "shit" in such a basically
positive expression, and I was trying to suggest a history which might
account for it.

[Tony Cooper]

On Sun, 6 Dec 2020 21:46:46 -0000 (UTC), Lewis
<g.k...@kreme.dont-email.me> wrote:

>In message <g6upsfl2bamphrm2a...@4ax.com> Tony Cooper <tonyco...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Sun, 6 Dec 2020 08:11:46 -0700, Ken Blake <k...@invalidemail.com>
>> wrote:
>
>>>On 12/5/2020 5:04 PM, RH Draney wrote:
>>>> On 12/5/2020 3:48 PM, Quinn C wrote:
>>>>> * Lewis:
>>>>>
>>>>>> In recent years (10?) I've heard the phrase "it's been a minute",
>>>>>> meaning "it's been a long time", with increasing frequency. I don't know
>>>>>> where it came from or how old it is, but I am certainly hearing it more
>>>>>> than I used to.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> It is usually used in the sense of meaning that something is happening

>>>>>> now that hasn?t happened for a long time, rather than something that was

>>>>>> simply a long time in the past.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> For example, a recent conversation:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> "Hey, haven't seen you recently." (it's been a decade or so)
>>>>>> "Yeah, long time no."
>>>>>> "It's been a minute."
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Ideas?
>>>>>
>>>>> It's the title of an NPR podcast, but I don't think that is the origin
>>>>> of its spread.
>>>>>
>>>>> It reminds me, however, that I also increasingly hear of things that
>>>>> happened or existed "for a hot second", which isn't as long as the
>>>>> above, but can be a few years, e.g. in the case of a fashion trend.
>>>>> Apparently, there's also a "hot minute", but I don't remember hearing
>>>>> that.
>>>>
>>>> I've heard people described as a "hot mess", but I can never remember if
>>>> that's supposed to be good or bad....r
>>>
>>>
>>>Don't mix it up with "hot shit."
>
>> I've never understood that usage. It's usually something like "He
>> thinks he's hot shit" with the intent of saying "He's not as
>> important/handsome/talented/skillful as he thinks he is".
>
>Idioms don't have to make sense, and most do not. Why would someone want
>to be a "bad ass"?

In my (much) younger years I wouldn't have minded being considered to
be a "bad ass". There were girls who were attracted to bad ass guys
and not attracted to nice guys.

[Quinn C]

* Lewis:

Being "the shit" is positive, too. What a difference an article makes!

[Lewis]

Yes, bad ass is an idiom with positive connotations even though the two
individual words are generally negative, that was rather the point of my
comment.


--
I AM NOT A 32 YEAR OLD WOMAN Bart chalkboard Ep. 7F08

[Ross Clark]

A little history (quotes from OED and Green):

(1) HOT STUFF = (something) first-rate, excellent, good-looking

1884 C. F. Lummis Let. 10 Oct. in Lett. from Southwest (1989) 22 I
will tell you in my next about the cowboys I saw at Junction City,
Abilene and Salina. They are ‘hot stuff’

Possibly related to hot stuff 'strong liquor' (AmEng from 1823)

(2) SHIT = stuff, things (material or otherwise)

1934 H. Miller Tropic of Cancer (1963) 52: We'll throw out all the other
contributors and we'll fill it with our own shit.
1950 N. Cassady Let. 16 Sept. (2005) 154 You have them, & Robert, to
help you get all our shit, books (& most important, radio..) etc.
1965 C. Brown Manchild in the Promised Land (1969) 183: Nobody had ever
stuck me up or shit like that.

(3) HOT SHIT = (something) first rate, excellent, good-looking

1960 V. N. Bourjaily Confess. Spent Youth iv. 108 According to the
terminology of my college generation the man who drank well and
performed colorfully was a ‘hot shit’
[Bourjaily's college years were just before and after WWII]

1963 AS XXXVIII:3 174: ["Kansas University Slang"] To describe something
in the most superlative tones and language is to call it [list of terms
including] hot shit.

1971 R. Meltzer Untitled press release 28 Sept. in Whore Just Like
Rest (2000) 215 Go see Hot Tuna because Hot Tuna is hot shit.

BUT "irony" very early makes its appearance:

1960 Wentworth & Flexner, Dict. Am.Slang hot shit ‘wonderful,
attractive, handsome, ....daring....intelligent...hip...’ Always used
in the negative...
1989 H. Rawson Dict. of Invective (1991) 352: hot shit. Hot shot, hot
stuff; often ironic
1990 J. Leavy Squeeze Play v. 343 I was sent out to do a piece on
some hot-shit star of some hot-shit sitcom who ended up at the Betty
Ford Clinic two months later.
1999 New Yorker 31 May 87/2 My old ten-year plan was to move here
and build a water-ski lake, be the hot-shit guy.


(Additional documentation on request.)

[Tony Cooper]

On Mon, 7 Dec 2020 15:14:48 +1300, Ross Clark <benl...@ihug.co.nz>
wrote:

These two sentences:

"He's hot shit"

and

"He thinks he's hot shit".

have opposite meanings. The first expresses admiration, and the
second expresses contempt.

[Ross Clark]

I wouldn't say opposite, but certainly different.
But would that not be equally true of

"He's a genius"
and
"He thinks he's a genius"
?

[Peter Moylan]

On 07/12/20 02:31, Tony Cooper wrote:

> I've never understood that usage. It's usually something like "He
> thinks he's hot shit" with the intent of saying "He's not as
> important/handsome/talented/skillful as he thinks he is".
>
> Who would want to be considered to be hot shit?

The more usual form here is "shit-hot". I imagine that that means really
hot, i.e. as hot as a great steaming pile of turds.

--
Peter Moylan Newcastle, NSW

[RH Draney]

Now let's see what you can do with this exchange from the 1927 film "It":

Waltham Employee (Betty Tree): "Hot socks! The new boss!"
Betty Lou Spence (Clara Bow): "Sweet Santa Claus, give me *him*!"

(Googling "hot socks" by itself gets you ads for heated or insulated
footwear)....r

[Ross Clark]

Looks like the most common use of the intensifier "shit" (adv). Green
has examples with "shit rainy", "shit lucky", "shit-miserable", "shit
soft", and of course "shit out of luck" is fairly common.

[Ross Clark]

:-) "hot rocks" meets "holy socks"?

[Ken Blake]

The more usual term here for the man currently in the White House who
thinks he's hot shit is "shithead."


--
Ken

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Monday, December 7, 2020 at 5:40:56 AM UTC-5, RH Draney wrote:

> Now let's see what you can do with this exchange from the 1927 film "It":
>
> Waltham Employee (Betty Tree): "Hot socks! The new boss!"
> Betty Lou Spence (Clara Bow): "Sweet Santa Claus, give me *him*!"

Is that a talkie? Isn't Clara Bow one of the silents stars who inspired
*Singin' in the Rain*? I.e., she couldn't deliver lines credibly?

[Sam Plusnet]

On 07-Dec-20 10:40, RH Draney wrote:
>
> Now let's see what you can do with this exchange from the 1927 film "It":
>
>   Waltham Employee (Betty Tree):  "Hot socks!  The new boss!"
>   Betty Lou Spence (Clara Bow):  "Sweet Santa Claus, give me *him*!"
>
> (Googling "hot socks" by itself gets you ads for heated or insulated
> footwear)....r

As close to an expletive as a film in 1927 could go?

It reminds me of pirates in film & TV of a earlier age.
Pirates are supposed to fill the air with blood-curdling oaths of the
most dreadful kind imaginable - yet they can't actually include any real
swearing, so scriptwriters have to be very inventive.

--
Sam Plusnet
Wales, UK

[Sam Plusnet]

Girl 1: "What do you think of <name>? Do you think he's cute?"
Girl 2: "Are you kidding me?? Have you seen his ass?"

[Peter T. Daniels]

I was talking with John McGlinn, the future Broadway-musical revivalist,
when we were grad students, he at Northwestern, I at Chicago, and he
was watching TV. He noticed that the sailors on H.M.S. Bounty (the
Laughton/Gable version) had no armpit hair.

[Ross Clark]

I should have mentioned "shit-scared", which might have been the
starting point for the whole lot.

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Monday, December 7, 2020 at 3:40:13 PM UTC-5, benl...@ihug.co.nz wrote:

> I should have mentioned "shit-scared", which might have been the
> starting point for the whole lot.

Cf. "Scared shitless."