Heard on The Judges: _for a minute_ = "over a long period of time," etc.

[Wilson Gray]

On Fri, Feb 18, 2011 at 8:48 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
>
> Just up the road from here; I think I've seen jokes based on "in
> Choate" vs. "inchoate", spelled a lot more similarly than they sound,
> but I can't remember or reconstruct any at the moment.
>
Bates also has this problem. A double-edged-sword headline from MIT's
student newspaper, The Tech:

"Beavers Master Bates"

>
> >Speaking of time, in Saint Louis there was use of _a *while*_ to mean
> >"never," as in:
> >
> >"If you're waiting on Mary, then you're going to be waiting a
> >*while*!" (She has stood you up.)
> >
> >"If you're waiting on John for that bread, then you're going to be
> >waiting _a *while*_!" (He has no intention of paying you back, or, He
> >has no intention of lending you the money.)
> >
> >"If you're looking for the Arch, then you're going to be looking a
> >*while*! (You can't get there from here.)
> >

> or "a while" as understatement for "forever", judging from these contexts.

or "forever" as an overstatement for "a while."

Youneverknow.

--
-Wilson
-----
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"––a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain

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