Wednesday 20 October 2010

To read this will only take you a moment... mwahahahaha.

The English language is full of units of measurement that fundamentally mean about the same thing, but nevertheless, cannot be specifically defined.

Many
Several
A lot
A few
Loads
Numerous
Some

Dictionary.com humourlessly defines several as being "more than two, but fewer than many". It then goes on to define "many" as "a large number".

Also: a "moment".
A moment is the most stupidly non-specific amount of time.

"I'll be with you in just a moment" probably means between 10 seconds and 10 minutes.

"A moment in history" could last hours, maybe days.

We have the word "minute": a nicely prescribed 60-seconds. Easy.

But no.
The English language has corrupted minute, so now it can mean anything. Someone says "I'll be with you in a minute" and they take, I don't know, perhaps 88 seconds to be with you.

They meant a "moment".
And then we're just back to where we started.

See, this is just another example of our language conspiring against us to make things more difficult for us.

English hates you.

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